I am not given to slinging insults on this blog, unless at myself, so forgive the title.

I was thinking about how, in the face of global emergencies, we easily get side-lined on to thinking about one small part of the whole.

Consider the tree planting thing. Trees sequester carbon, so what we need to do is… plant more trees. Any trees, anywhere, even if this creates ecological disaster. Or consider the way that we seek to manage our consumer guilt by buying expensive ‘green’ products that we don’t need.

Aren’t we stupid?

.

Stupid

.

It’s not about the carbon, stupid

It’s about communion

It’s how we take our place, not at top

But in the mess of the middle, for

If forest is lung and sea is blood,

If river is vein, perhaps we

Would be brain, if not so

Stupid

.

It’s not about the buying, stupid

The best costs nothing, but

Is never free, for

We cannot spend our way

Out of forest, out of fire

Out of home, out of

Our own bones

Stupid

.

It’s not about the saving, stupid

It about the great love

For fur, for feather

For fine sand and smooth boulder

For a silver thing in stream and crispest ice

For the whole sky of it

And the sigh in everything,

Stupid