Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Celery Farm September 7, 2022

Monday, September 5, 2022

Halifax Road September 5, 2022

Sunday, September 4, 2022

a little perspective

A little perspective on invasive species

Here where the ice covered everything

In a sheet thousands of feet thick

What existed ten thousand years ago


Here everything around us came from away

Expanding its range without regard

Displacing whatever was here before it

And our species is the prime example


The indigenous people decimated and dispossessed 

The old growth forests clearcut and the prairie plowed under 

The wetlands drained and waterways engineered 

The countryside colonized with European species 


This is the world we find ourselves in

Trying to preserve and protect what is left of nature 

Seeking opportunities for restoration

But making invasives the enemy lacks awareness 


The overlap with anti-immigration language gives me pause 

Between the racists who clamor to build that wall

And those who wish to exterminate alien flora and fauna

Paired in common by a desire to keep out recent arrivals


Don't get me wrong thinking I don't grieve the loss

The chestnut and elm and ash trees and so much else

The introduced species taking over and all the wildlife habitat gone 

But stomping spotted lanternflies is a fool's errand 


While these unwelcome species proliferate 

Spread by global commerce to and from everywhere 

The global warming crisis only intensifies

Driven by business as usual continuing without restraint


The sixth mass extinction upheaval 

The unintended consequence of human activity

Already underway if you care to know

Begs us to make a fundamental social change 

 

Celery Farm September 4, 2022