Читать книгу Letters to the Earth - Группа авторов - Страница 13

I got up this morning and took my mug of tea to the open window. I could hear the sound of blackbirds and blue tits on the grassy bank and in the hawthorn trees that edge the field behind my garden. I stood and felt the warm sun on my skin and watched as they flew: blue, black, brown, grey, yellow, red, with straw and moss in their beaks for lining their nests.

There was a little nest, exposed by the winter, in the climbing hydrangea on my neighbour’s fence – the separation that was required between our spaces. It was perfect, nestled against the creosoted panels – once proud trees – and the gardener’s wire that holds the sprawling plant upright. I imagined the mother there with her babies, safe and secure behind a wall of lush green vegetation. Shielded from the prying eyes of next door’s ginger tomcat.

The sun went behind a scudding spring cloud and I watched as a pair of rooks walked along the top of the wall below the bird feeder, surveying the scene, pretending to each other that they hadn’t found a tasty worm or juicy seed. My eye travelled down towards the newly planted pond, a swish and a splash and the smooth newt had disappeared back below the surface of the green-tinged water. The plants are beginning to grow up around it – the ragged robin and clary sage, the water plantain and flowering rush in their first spurt of spring. I opened the door and stepped outside into my wildlife haven and stood beside the pond. I am as still as the green-black pool.

My mind was empty of the day, empty of children and mortgages, cars and cleaning, housework, ironing, shopping, meetings and things to be done, bought and consumed. A collared dove, soft grey and heavy, landed on a hawthorn bough and it bowed under the bird’s weight. A second joined it and I closed my eyes to listen to the soft cooing they made to one another as they walked up and down the branches, their heads bobbing as they searched for insects. I am a quiet intruder in their busy lives.

My patio and flower beds, the concrete and paving stones, houses, high-rises, office blocks and motorways, reservoirs and dams seem to me, to us, to take precedence as we order and build nature out of existence. The ancient forests of Britain, Amazonia, Romania, Borneo, Ghana, the eastern United States, Mexico and Australia have been razed to the ground. I have destroyed half of all the trees on earth. I have killed my brothers and sisters for decking and picture frames, warmth and convenience.

I opened my eyes and looked up to the vast blue expanse of sky, swirled with wispy clouds and heard the high-pitched pewee-pewee of a red kite high above, circling. Two more appeared and then suddenly there were eight or ten red kites, their tails dipping and turning as they swooped in great arcs, riding thermals, thriving and free. I drained my mug of tea, now gone cold, and headed back inside, my heart filled, my mind clear as I sat down at my desk to write a letter to the earth.

Justine Railton