Agribusy
It didn’t take long for this little island, Albion
- once forest-flush, fresh-watered
for land-grabbing man to carve up and settle,
set-up agri-bases for goat and hen,
wild oat and crab-apple called mine
Our pretty hedgerows, copses, chopped-up farmland,
the sense of squatters-rights
and freedom to roam
faint remnantal evidence of ago.
So Empire grew. Then Industry.
Populations exploding
along with aggrandizement;
so these days we find ourselves avariciously-eyeing
the forests and resources of others:
pontificating about their irresponsible lack of conservation,
about all being one global village, sharing.
…ah, for the hypocrisy and greed!
- fruit of the Ahrimanic experiment:
the hubris of entitled cheek.
The short-term solution seen as:
multiply the density of crop & stock.
Intensify fertilizer & insecticide use.
Expand puny, feudal boundaries!
Drain the bogs and dam the rivers!
Captivate the wild or common lands!
Enlarge the machinery,
the trade-base and staffing
on models of big business.
Hey presto - fortunes made
even if reduced to employing
cheap foreign labour.
Having forgotten about where, how
to house all those hoards of
bothersome people until...Aha!
Go high-rise vertical - like Lego!
(Having forgotten that long since,
the Pharaohs and Druids knew all about indestructible stone.)
Recent-builds take time to fall down,
get to notice the rust, metal fatigue
and natural entropy of materials
- unless some crash or catastrophe reminds them.
Meanwhile
the disrupted ecosystem
seeks to balance the economy
helped by wars, famines, droughts pandemics
and synthetic new inventions
to replace the desiccated old
with fancy high-tech, biotic devices
and genetic modification.
Sept