Minnewaska Beacon Hill

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Wawayanda walk Fall equinox

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just yesterday

When I was a boy I would ask my mother

To tell me stories of the olden days

And listen rapt to hear about her childhood

And her adult life before I was born.

She was born at the end of the Great War

When the world was already whirling in modern times.

My grandmother was born in the previous century

Ancient history in the mists of time I thought then.

Now I think our measure of time compares to personal existence

Going back some number of times more than your own duration

And as I get older the events of the past two centuries seem closer

Like the recent past just once or twice removed from my life.

The industrial revolution accelerated the long sweep of time by any measure

Inventions of machines to transport us transforming the landscape

Inventions of weapons to destroy us bringing terror like a nightmare

Inventions of technology creating a future out of science fiction.

I see now what has happened over three of my lifetimes

Just yesterday canals were dug for barges connecting rivers

Replaced by railroad lines interlaced in a better network

Outmoded a few decades later by the interstate highway system.

Today I can telecommute on the information super highway

And as I bicycle along re-purposed canal paths and former railroad beds

I imagine a future when the multiple lane highways are overgrown

Though I do not know what will replace all that tarmac and those vehicles.

That would be the fourth lifetime for the youth of today to live out

Finding alternatives to using the atmosphere and oceans and earth as a dump

Learning how to close the cycle so that everything is a resource to re-use

Creating a healthy ecosystem where all life can thrive.

The alternative continuation of the present trajectory

Brings about the sixth mass extinction

Our amazing success creating the seeds of our destruction

Unable to adapt to the new conditions we have caused.

Blairstown

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