This year's World Environment Day is also the start of the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration 2021 - 2030. I don't think I was aware of either event yesterday when we stopped by one of our favorite local, independent, bookstores, where I purchased two books that align nicely with World Environment Day and an Ecosystem Restoration Decade.
what's at the end of your rainbow?
Photo by J. Harrington
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The first book was The Nature of Oaks by Douglas W. Tallamy, subtitle: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees. If you read this blog with any degree of regularity, first, thank you!, and second, you have probably read my complaints about our oak trees dropping leaves what seems like 11 months of the year. I'm hoping reading Tallamy's book will help me develop a more positive perspective toward the many oaks with whom we have been sharing a seven acre homestead.
The second book is one I've almost bought the last couple of times we've stopped by the bookstore. This time it spoke loudly enough that I knew better than to resist. N. Scott Momaday's Earth Keeper - Reflections on the American Land "argues that “it is the present and the possibilities of a future that must concern us. Ours is a damaged world. We humans have done the damage, and we must be held to account. We have suffered a poverty of the imagination, a loss of innocence. I would strive with all my strength to give [a] sense of wonder to those who will come after me.”
I hope most fervently that a decade of ecosystem restoration will lean heavily on the wisdom of indigenous peoples throughout the world and, especially, here in Minnesota and the Great Lakes region, so that we may share in the delights of living on a restored earth.
The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee
I am a feather on the bright skyI am the blue horse that runs in the plainI am the fish that rolls, shining, in the waterI am the shadow that follows a childI am the evening light, the lustre of meadowsI am an eagle playing with the windI am a cluster of bright beadsI am the farthest starI am the cold of dawnI am the roaring of the rainI am the glitter on the crust of the snowI am the long track of the moon in a lakeI am a flame of four colorsI am a deer standing away in the duskI am a field of sumac and the pomme blancheI am an angle of geese in the winter skyI am the hunger of a young wolfI am the whole dream of these thingsYou see, I am alive, I am aliveI stand in good relation to the earthI stand in good relation to the godsI stand in good relation to all that is beautifulI stand in good relation to the daughter of Tsen-tainteYou see, I am alive, I am alive
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