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We scrape from the world….its wonder

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My friend Karen Wilson shared a poem she wrote recently, ‘White Egret Speaks’.  Her poem expresses sentiments many have expressed regarding the developments taking place in what used to be one of the most beautiful, pristine and protected seascapes in all Grenada, the La Sagesse Nature Centre.  In the name of development, government and a big fancy resort are destroying the very earth that gives life. I realize how complex these issues are when unemployment is high on the island. However, there must be other ways to create sustainable and equitable opportunities for employment without destroying the very earth that gives us life.

i am deeply interested, curious, passionate in how to build right relations with the natural world; how to strengthen, initiate a love affair between human beings and the earth.  We have moved so far from understanding SHE is living, SHE is breathing, SHE is our navel chord. SHE is our very breath.

Thanks for this powerful poem Karen

White Egret Speaks

We scrape from the world … its wonder Jane Hirshfield, LEDGER

There has been a disaster, all is lost –

nothing left of my home, my refuge

on this tropical shore

this salt pond and mangroves

shelter and shade

feeding and breeding grounds

for me and countless creatures

created from the sea, joined to the land

vital buffer against wind and storm

water filter, sediment collector

communicating with the sea

by underground seepage –

complex, flexible ecosystem

“protected land” –

but money changed hands

Now a moonscape, no green thing left

bulldozed and ready for further change

until not a hint remains

of what was before

laid bare to be ‘tropical paradise’

for visitors from afar – hotels, villas,

swimming pools, clear views to the sea

and a sanitized beach swept clean

of debris (animal, vegetable and mineral)

brought in by the ceaseless waves

I fly over from time to time

vainly hoping something’s been saved

while our kin inevitably decline

Just a small destruction,

some might say – those who don’t know

the agony of losing livelihood and home

Karen Wilson La Sagesse, Grenada March 7 2020

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