Lost paths
My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one
That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow & river & wind-wandering weed-winding bank.
O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew -
Hack and rack the growing green!
The Dark Path has vanished: the narrow path, close-lined with conifers, which I would walk each day before dawn with my torch switched off and my gaze lifted, navigating by the narrow strip of stars between the black branches.
The Forestry Commission came out with their heavy machinery and, over two days, cleared all the trees that lined the way. What was once a shaded, secret way, sheltered from driving rain and summer sun, is now wide open to the elements.
But I'm not going to go all Gerard Manley Hopkins. This is by nature a cyclical landscape: open heathland changes to forest, and forest changes back to heathland over the years. Whenever stands of conifers are felled there is a temporary devastation, a brief wasteland of tree stumps and spoil. But within two or three years, the heath comes back, the tree stumps lost beneath a cover of flowering heather and gorse, and tiny self-seeded pine saplings. And within ten years the pine saplings have become trees, and the forest starts creeping back
When I met the Gentleman with the Staffie this morning, he said the Forestry Commission were creating a firebreak. With climate change, droughts and heatwaves are becoming more common. Heath and forest fires are becoming far more serious. It makes sense to create and maintain firebreaks.