online: 27 february 2015
modified: 27 february 2015
17 february 2015 in the forest and the internet
...a sunny winter afternoon... trees and shrubs still a leafless network
of bare twigs and branches... among which is one of the resident
robins... not singing but jumping and flying from branch to branch... no
other movement in sight... but loud screeching of emergency vehicle in
the distance... in bright sunlight which is illuminating every bit of
vegetation that is not in shadow.... (of other vegetation)... in the
complex nameless spaces between all these growing things...
...the air is quite warm... about 5-10 degrees Celsius i guess... and my
writing hand is not yet too cold to continue...
...not a cloud above... only twigs and branches between my eyes and the
cosmos seen as blue... and no wind to speak of... some remaining leaves
in the undergrowth nearby vibrate in
slightest breeze about 1-2 mm or less... or are completely still...
several birds fly low in the sunlight... and disappear... all's well on
planet earth... at least what can be seen of it from here on Sandy
Heath... a heath or swamp no longer... but now a spontaneous forest
after a century or so of being left alone to grow largely as it will...
if only
its keepers would see inaction as creative...
in a cafe to get warm:
after walking on straight and twisty paths through field and
undergrowth i pass an elderberry tree still leafless except for
a few new branches on which there are one or two sprouting leaves...
despite the recent cold...
...then sat at the highest seat to look at the distant city towers...
today in sharp focus through cold dry air... several recently planted
pine trees are already beginning to block the view from this famous
point...
...feeling warm again... and looking up from touch screen i
see through walls of glass both cars and people moving privately...
without a word or gesture of communication... unless it is being
transmitted
via handheld gadgets (such as this) and may elsewhere-and-when be
read... but for how long?... perhaps only for a century... unless our
descendants find ways to revive dead circuitry and software... and which
i guess they surely will... aided by the software that writes its own
future in self-referring thought and action in the present... (as
existing apps may turn out to be too rigid to survive in a connective
world)...
see longlife software version of this website:
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/target/140073
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