Live from MBI

So as a part of class today we were asked to write for a bit about something along the lines of Salt Marsh Elegy by Aldo Leapold. Then we each read our little bits. It was more than a little bit deep. Yeah...This little bit is mine. If everyone else is game I will provide bits from my colleagues in a bit but as we just did this...you're just gonna have to wait.

These people, they are beautiful and with their empty longing eyes. They only want for their children and their children’s children, and so they cut the trees. Not because they do not care or do not understand but because they can do nothing else when they hear a hungry child’s cries And they plant what they can and tend and care with all the time and emotion they can afford to invest- still saving time for their children, the children with the hungry eyes. And so they gather their sweat and blood in time and they sell to the man who comes with the truck. The prices are low but will another man come? Who is to say and the children are hungry tonight. And so they burn what is left trying to preserve what goodness the soil still holds in any way possible, but the ghosts of the ancient forest trees can only help the soil for so long after they are gone and smoldering piles amount to little or nothing at all. And the children are hungry so the land is sold, the price is low but what can be done. And the home is moved ever inward, chasing the great giant trees and mourning their passing with plows and funeral pyres. Smoke rising to the heavens as if in solemn prayer, acrid and stinging smoke an excuse for tears, God we do not want it this way, these ugly dark scars on your earth, but our children are hungry…