Yesterday morning we started class by reading a few different poems by Dylan Thomas, Gerard Hopkins, and Theodore Roethke. These poems talked about nature and how mankind interacts with it. Keeping this idea with me of what human’s relationship with nature is, I remembered that there is an old railroad station in the woods behind my house. A little later, I walk over to the area and sit down on a fallen tree. It is very peaceful and I listen to the many birds sing and the faint rustle of leaves and bushes. The sunbeams through a small break in between the trees and slightly warms me. I run my hands through the gravel mixed soil and reach down to pick up an old clump of coal. I look around and notice the moss-covered stone walls, pieces of old fencing, and rusty wires. As well as the large trees, plants, and other wildlife that now inhabit this area. Such as the small animals, probably skunks or moles, that live in holes and burrows under the large rocks on the top of the hill.
As I look around, I try to imagine what this area looked like as a train station so many years ago. But while thinking about this, I begin to think about how individual parts of nature, trees, plants, and wildlife, die, but the cycle of nature has always existed. Before this was a railroad, it was probably a forest, and now that it is not being used by humans, nature can return to this space. I feel that the railroad in the woods is just one example of the dynamic between humans and nature. People need space to develop, so they often clear land, but once they don’t need the space anymore, they abandon it. And that is typically when nature reclaims and grows in the area again. After, understanding that many of mankind’s interactions with nature and the earth are us needing something and nature providing for us, such as natural resources. This helped me realize that nature doesn’t need humans to live, but we need nature in order to live, and we need to respect and take care of the earth because it is constantly providing for us.
Comments