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