online: 24 june 2010 modified: 24 june 2010 18 june 2010 crudely mechanical
in a quiet valley
...pausing at a seat beneath trees overlooking a hayfield... a tree-covered mountain opposite... the silence is broken by a loud-engined contraption... possibly being used for road building or maintenance...
...the roads here are well-graded and smooth-surfaced but the means of attaining this excellence is far from it... a mechanical roar from the engine and occasional loud clonks when moving parts strike something stony... evidently no thought to the immediate impact of this monster on the peace and quiet to which the roads give access...
...but i've no wish to agitate... only to describe what is happening here in the again quiet forest path along which comes a gentle man saying good day as he passes...
...and now a cyclist on a forgivable ratchety bike who also says good day... and a white van passing noiselessly on the road beyond the hayfield on which i saw and heard the road machine...
...now the sound of a bumble bee which i suppose may be irritating to some smaller creatures...
...back in a comfortable interior space in a house near the hayfield i still sense the proximity of what we call nature and hear some of the semi-civilised indoor machines (eg dish washers and vacuum cleaners) that are nowadays less noisy than constructional equipment... but i still imagine a time when all of the mechanically modified nature on which we depend is as well-organised-without-plan as are the woods and all other places where presently millions of us flee from the reality we make yet reluctantly accept...
...it is time to change our ways and our perceptions... and to cease to divide... or do harm to self/other
...later i saw this machine at close-quarters and realised it is for trimming the trees bushes and grasses along roadsides... more for safety than smooth driving... but the principle's the same: to cease to tolerate all such gaps between natural coherence and sub-natural mechanical crudity...
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