online: 26 june 2011 modified: 24, 26 june 2011 24 june 2011 a clearing
in a city forest
...i sit here to contemplate a recent felling of tall trees (mainly beeches) perhaps to enjoy the light that now pervades what was recently the day-time-dusk (or semi-darkness) of the forest... but still a little shocked to see the bare earth (already sprouting seedlings)... and the sight of several large tree stumps cut down to a few centimetres above ground level...
... but before assuming anger or regret at this de-struction i remember Gary Snyder's wider view of forestry and his approval of the natural cycle in which forests grow only to a certain extent until they become ripe for moderate natural fires (ignited by lightning and other causes) that do not burn everything but leave layers of fallen seeds from which a new forest can grow*...
*Gary Snyder's early life as forest fire lookout and his later life as poet and thinker appear as book and video references in the digital diary entry parts of nature, 31 may 2011
...apparently the actions of ourselves as foresters and environmentalists etc prevent these natural fires... and are letting trees grow so large (and so close to dwellings) that accidentally or deliberately started fires can become huge public and natural disasters that get out of control...
...but ceasing to think such thoughts i pause to look again and listen to this forest itself and to the clearing in which i am sitting:
...the nearest trees to me are shorn of lower twigs and branches leaving bare trunks which are wound with hessian or sackcloth bandages (if that is what they are) leaving me unable to guess the reason for this felling and bandaging... perhaps the explanation will appear if i wait, or think, or inquire of passers-by...
(later i did ask a passer-by and he told me that the bandages are to protect certain tree trunks from excessive solar radiation)
....in this fresh air after a rainstorm... and still observing the clearing... i see a vapour trail moving swiftly across the patch of sky above... a man in red and white is running by with smooth and easy strides... i hear the song of a bird i don't recognise... and the not-so-distant sound of encircling motorways...
...and now, tired of thinking about the cutting down of trees that were here only a few months ago, my attention switches to the sight of uncut forest and undergrowth beyond... and i get up to re-enter the forest proper and to walk wherever else i may be called by circumstance today...
...and, as i rise to go, the smooth-running man in red and white passes by again (having i suppose already encircled this section of the forest)...
...but after walking through parts of what i have been describing as wilderness i kept encountering some very evidently man-made features within it:
a section of still water in an ornamental canal which wanders geometrically through the woods
about a dozen cyclists slowly riding in company
a little hill or bank a few metres high on which tall beeches grow and in which are the buried a military HQ and bunkers left over from world war 2
and then the sight of people eating in a glass-walled restaurant set close to forest trees and to statues copied from the works of Michaelangelo... and perhaps Auguste Rodin also...
...i was led (to the spot where this is being written) by following ten or so boys who were running together (as an adventure, not a keep-fit exercise) and who seemed to care little for the more cautious ways and works of adults... perhaps luckily for everyone and for the perpetual newness of the world...
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