Our Climate Conversation

Time plays tricks

The past, the fleeting present, the uncertain future
Our mental time line is not straight as equally spaced clock work
But bent, contorted by our personal experiences
So that life’s special moments appear stronger, fresher
Pinpoints of bright memory in gradually fading blur.

Can you still find multi-coloured grass hoppers in the field,
Or watch curved flocks of pee-wit plovers follow the plough?
Are there still wild violets and primroses in the damp hedgerows each spring
For children to pick and give to their mothers on the special day?

Wild bees nested in holes in the crumbling wall next to my first garden.
Sometimes we children were taken to school in the farmer’s brown lorry
All packed together onto the bench seat next to him driving,
Ruddy faced, wearing heavy boots and smelling strongly of cow dung.

Time is scarce and precious especially when so much is stolen by technology.
Back then there was no smartphone or twitchy game demanding all attention
Instead, transparent water fleas showing all their organs
flicked across the circle of light
The microscope tube opened a rich and beautiful world of moving forms:
Rippling hairs, flagellating legs, a hydra opening out like a sea anemone

We take the continuous future too easily for granted.
The evidence is that it can stop abruptly or mutate at any moment.
Our luminous friends may appear to be solidly permanent like mountains
But they are really just mortal like us, so as fragile as young children.

We need a softer relationship with time – time is not money,
There is nothing worse than to be driven against the clock.
We need to open up space in our busy schedules, in our hearts too,
Take a slower, deeper, more meaningful pace
To connect with each other and the natural world that we are a part of.

It is a mistake to think that our present is little different from those past.
Have you not noticed the ravages of Climate Breakdown today in your back yard?
There was a gentler time; things are now just a shadow of what they once were.
So let us work together – with the right interventions we can yet regenerate
And preserve our planet for the generations to come.