“I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet & viewed it appreciatively instead of skeptically and dictatorially.” -E.B. White

The words of writer, E.B. White, came to mind as I watched “progress” advance in Booker Park the last couple of weeks. It was enough that since starting the farm in May, I noticed the early morning noises of construction had replaced the bird song I remember. Now as the animals scurried in every direction from the tall cow grass behind the farm; crying & searching for safety as the machine leveled their home, I was aware that the construction (destruction) had reached my doorstep. 

Just after sunrise, the machine aggressively plowed forward without regard for the animals fleeing its path. The cries of the animals that call the grasses their home was like a blaring alarm. I wondered if the machine operator would hear the cries in his head for hours after like me. I wondered if he heard the cries at all.

Those grasses have stood for decades; long before any developer had the notion to “invest” in Booker Park. I recognize there is an opportunity to monetize the land, but to what end? So more humans can be crammed into hastily erected structures designed in keeping with the existing architecture of poverty? And what of the animals that co-exist in these spaces? 

No doubt the animals I’ve seen coming & going from the grasses will now be labeled “neighborhood nuisances”- & “dealt with” accordingly- instead of as “displaced residents.” Where are they supposed to go after we (humans) have destroyed their home? 

Booker Park is well on its way to becoming more of an industrial park than a neighborhood. What humans would choose to live there- amidst the constant construction; fumes & job site litter?

This colonizer behavior of taking what we want without regard for other life forms is what has gotten us into the trouble we’re in, but perhaps some don’t recognize the trouble we’re in. Maybe they can’t see the neon lit path of destruction we (humans) are on. 

We are destroying the only planet we can (currently) inhabit. We are poisoning our own water supply. We are destroying the land where we grow our food- if we can even figure out how to grow food in the crazy climate change we are stubbornly magnifying. We are killing animals & insects to the point of extinction as if we too are not animals susceptible to the same fate. Our greed & selfish arrogance will be our demise.

Of course no town stays the same, but is all movement forward? 

Is all change progress?