Henry David Thoreau (1817—1862) was an antibellum abolitionist; anarcho-primitivist, before that long word got caught and taught to urbane layabouts; self-sufficient survivalist, merrily sufficing life; and revivalist of that that makes humans humane, and decently fit for Gaia‘s shuddering crust.
If Henry saw us now, bedecked in techno-glitz that sheets the suffused face of gold and glad land with winnowing concrete, widdowing that land from humbler life, would he weep?
If Henry walked his woods, once unkempt from kept and kenneling society, would he steep the watery sighs of loss — in silence, astute with stately wishes?
His woods, once thick with verdure’s growth, grow blackly deep in oiled perfumes, thresh-work of downed, town-fed trees, and washing detriments of industry’s heavy gullet. His ponds, awash in residues both cancerous and fickly deliterious, erode the quiet last of lashed shores.
Lascerated land!
come clean,
and humming cures
with greensward feck,
fore Henry comes
Again.