Wood Romances

Lake Apopka Restoration Area
Lake Apopka is a haven for wildlife but was heavily polluted. Restoration efforts turned this area around, and it's becoming a healthy area for wildlife again.

The title of this blog comes from a poem by C. S. Lewis, entitled, "The Future of Forestry." The poem is set in a time when the last tree is gone from England, and children have to ask their parents what trees are. The poem is an example of what I see as a reason for starting a blog like this. I love nature, I love God's creatures, and I believe that we need comprehensive conservation programs that are scientifically-sound and empirically-driven to ensure that the "future of forestry" is one that our children will enjoy as much as we do.  So this blog is about "wood romances"--the love of the natural world and the creatures that live in the habitats that should motivate us to use sound, scientific, and empirical reasoning to conserve habitats and the biodiversity of our world.

The Future of Forestry

How will the legend of the age of trees
Feel, when the last tree falls in England?
When the concrete spreads and the town conquers
The country’s heart; when contraceptive
Tarmac’s laid where farm has faded,
Tramline flows where slept a hamlet,
And shop-fronts, blazing without a stop from
Dover to Wrath, have glazed us over?
Simplest tales will then bewilder
The questioning children, “What was a chestnut?
Say what it means to climb a Beanstalk,
Tell me, grandfather, what an elm is.
What was Autumn? They never taught us.”
Then, told by teachers how once from mould
Came growing creatures of lower nature
Able to live and die, though neither
Beast nor man, and around them wreathing
Excellent clothing, breathing sunlight –
Half understanding, their ill-acquainted
Fancy will tint their wonder-paintings
Trees as men walking, wood-romances
Of goblins stalking in silky green,
Of milk-sheen froth upon the lace of hawthorn’s
Collar, pallor in the face of birchgirl.
So shall a homeless time, though dimly
Catch from afar (for soul is watchfull)
A sight of tree-delighted Eden.

C. S. Lewis

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