What our souls can't do without.
When we talk about loss of biodiversity,
And species.
What we mean is Dragonfly warming her wings on a sunny wall.
Her 300 million years of unbroken ancestry.
Ravens in the park.
Their fierce intelligence and jaunty walks.
Weightless and round as a ping-pong ball who chit-chits through the bramble thicket alongside our walk.
Spring birch leaves peeling back their toothy buds to leave a neat and tidy nothing.
The wild creatures ravenous for life and birds in their sky love have their own sovereignty and priorities that have nothing to do with us.
Surely we have realised by now we need their kinship and beauty.
Far more than they need ours.
Encounters in the cool of first light.
Or lingering warmth of late evening.
A deer.
Down from the hill,
Browsing on bracken shoots.
Who looks up?
Meets our eyes.
Her gaze forever now,
Her whole being poised for flight.
As if her life depends on it.
Which someday it might.
Who leaves us feeling consecrated.
