online: 2 may 2011 modified: 21, 25, 26 april, 2 may 2011 19 april 2011 long shadows
city forest
...a quiet evening in long shadow of forest... spreading over field or lawn in the Kenwood estate... crows calling in distance... sounds of people walking by on gravel path... i am disturbed by reading in cafe of harsh treatment of people affected by the Chernobyl nuclear accident... so-called...
...the sky is blue with a few wispy clouds at high level... a thunderous sunlit jumbo jet flies north on a course directly overhead... and a woman in white tennis clothes walks by... she is directed by pre-existence of a constructed pathway... composed of clay and flints now completely dry (after east winds for days)... and now crunching beneath her footsteps...
...this scene... which was laid out (by Humphry Repton in the 1790s) as landscape garden for a few... is now most firmly ruled by green-minded professionals imposing what they believe to be utopian conditions for many... and perhaps they are right (but 'right for whom?' is the political or even theological question)...
...i guess this is right for prosperous educated people... an obedient class in favour of imposing rules upon themselves and others... (and i admit to liking the resulting scene but not the way it is imposed)...
...the shadows of the forest have now darkened all the grass... and all but the tops of distant trees... the air is cooling as it begins to move as evening breeze... and i rise to walk home through the forest... calmed and refreshed...
...as i wrote that a woman in green uniform drove by on a green jeep-like vehicle and slowed down to reach for a piece of litter... with a kind of tongs (or arm-extension) made of metal... a paper bag was rescued without the woman leaving the jeep or even stopping it completely... (will the next step be a litter-collecting robot?)
...as i walked along the path the woman with dogs (only one dog today) who always speaks to me... appeared suddenly out of the forest and remarked on the weather... the hottest day yet this year... (25 degrees or more in London)...
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