Herb...

XIX.

“And this delightful Herb whose tender Green

Fledges the River’s Lip on which we lean –

Ah! lean upon it lightly! for who knows

From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!”

Carrying on from the previous quatrain, Omar and Edward push the thought of death and what happens next to its logical conclusion – in the end, we are all dirt.

Once perished and placed in the ground, we become once more part of a greater unity - the Earth. And having gone back to that point of origin, the cycle begins once more: the ground puts forth grass; the grass is eaten; the eater nourishes its consumer; the consumer generates more of its kind. It’s basic science; but something which we – in our lives removed from the natural progression of things – oftentimes forget, or overlook. We all, as they say, “go down to dust”; we all serve “the Force that through the Green Fuse drives the Flower”.

To me, this verse is a reminder that, despite all of our accomplishments and deeds, we are all connected by the fact of being a part of this system. It’s an exhortation to be aware of the cycles that envelop us and the systems which produce us and return us and recycle us. I’m sure that both Omar and Edward didn’t think in terms of “the Environment”, or “Green movements”, but then they were both far more connected to Nature than we are today.

Poisoned ground brings forth nothing; Nature is capable of sparking life in the most arid, desolate and inhospitable places. Unfortunately, we have reached a stage where we can create places where even Nature gets stumped. Plastic has been found at the bottom of the ocean’s deepest chasms. Antarctic rookeries regularly produce fewer penguin chicks than can be counted on the fingers of one hand. In the face of rising sea-levels, the Maldives has reserved a whole island of their chain to heaping up the garbage left behind by their tourist industry, an industry decreasing due to the constant odours of decay and rafts of floating refuse. Are we leaning lightly upon our river-bank in the universe? I don’t think so.

Climate deniers carry on about “the facts”, and simultaneously cherry-pick those same facts to support their personal opinions. Not the Truth; their Opinions. Opinions which can be dramatically altered by a simple Facebook advertisement. Behind these folk you will find vested interests based upon Industrial Investments and Cash-Flows in every instance. There is never any notion of Preservation, or Conservation, in their rhetoric. It’s talk which supports a greedy agenda to consume and use every available resource, turning it all into cold, hard, cash. Even people. Once you kill all of the Tigers and Sharks and Rhinos though, there’s nothing left. And you can’t eat money.

Listen to what Omar and Edward are saying. Lean lightly upon the Earth: it’s a part of us; all of us. And the thing that’s killing it (and us) is our greed.