A millennial old contradiction, Hampshire, England’s New Forest is neither new, nor mostly forest. It’s an ancient piece of land, enclosed by a King, adjudicated by Verderers, managed by Commissioners and Commoners and grazed upon by domesticated animals. A mixture of heath, marsh and woodland enclosures, its habitats change perceptibly with the seasons but very little throughout the centuries.
There is its Winter’s frost-hard earth and cracked-ice streams. Spring, with bracken’s fractal unfurling, purple heather and yellow gorse rising from the acid earth. Summer’s haze and tourists’ intrusions. But Autumn is my favourite time of year : russet leaves crackling underfoot with polychromatic flames of trees above.
I was calling this a poem when I jotted down my first set of seasonal observations, whilst sat on a woodland tree stump a distant year ago. And, at this beginning, when the theme was just a timely ‘Autumn’, it was. But now, halfway during its final composition, during the more difficult autumn of 2020, I watched Sir David Attenborough’s ‘witness statement’ to the world - ‘A Life On Our Planet’ - and it made me feel tense, angry and depressed all in one fell swoop. But not particularly hopeful, even though I think this was also its intent.
So now the verse below is noticeably terser and has a vertical rant juxtaposed, one which I’m not apologetic about. It’s me letting off steam at the sorry state of planet Earth (which, by the way, is not 'our' planet). It contrasts how the natural world is trying to get on with just the basics of life and seasonal change, as it has done for hundreds of millions of years, with the actions of a single species that’s escaped its natural confines; one which, ignorant and blinkered, continues to drive down a costly highway, creating one selfish mess after another.
You might disagree with me. You might not. I honestly don’t think it matters any more.
