I took a walk the other day in the hope of finding spring. My cheerful neighbour thinks it has arrived; but the wind was arctic! My route took me along a cottage road. Everywhere I looked I saw, instead of burgeoning spring, only indications of decay.
Decrepit barns, signs telling me to watch for cattle where no cattle have grazed for years, fallen fences; all were making me feel gloomy. The superannuated agrarian landscape made me feel as if I were at the end of something more than a road.
I saw some archaeology in the making, which reminded me that these processes have been going on forever. (Although, in some places, these remains would have been Roman rather than Modern Suburban). In some perverse way, that would have seemed better to me.
It wasn't until I noticed the cavity in this venerable old tree, decay providing an opportunity for some creature to make himself a home, that I remembered that the old MUST give way to the the new. It's the way of the world. Our responsibility is to make sure that the new is worth having.
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