Flames and Cuttings

The world is on fire, but still saplings grow and seeds germinate

It’s the time of the last red flowers, flames in the July heat before things start to brown and frazzle, bake golden until late summer rains bring them back to life. The garden’s colours almost resemble yuletide, but declined in a sunlit version. This year, things struggled to grow: endless wintry conditions until the end of April, then suddenly summer. My peas, so sweet and abundant last year, withered in dry pods; only two crocosmia bore flowers, the peonies none at all. The courgettes and bean seeds did not sprout. Perhaps I should have made more effort, with this sandy ground that a more seasoned gardener might call poor, but could perhaps be better described as unsuited bending to the will of humans. The lawn that never really takes in this land reclaimed from dusty pine forest is a sign of resistance as much as it is a mark of climate change: nature will not stop trying to reclaim.

Sometimes it nonetheless seems that human constructions can blend in organically…

With this in mind, I thought about the railway cutting that I cycle, run and walk alongside and through which I pass regularly on the way into Paris. Hewn from the landscape, in nonetheless seems to remain a fertile part of the forest, that must be cut down twice yearly in order for trains to continue to run. This gives me hope for a future where with or without humans, to almost quote Jurassic Park, life will once again find its way.

And the earth groaned its cloven flesh open
And let the scar become landscape
Thousands rushing daily through its veinless lifelines
Resistance so glorious in its typicity
Acacia saplings, bracken and bramble
Suturing this scarification
Hacked back biannually just as we have hacked back rain
Unawares
And the forest may burn
No matter
We will scatter and fester
The earth will close back over
Our pathetic genius and hurrying clockwork existence
A great green unquiet will come again