The blue of distance – the green of time
Rebecca Solnit wrote of the ‘blue of distance’:
“The colour of hills that recede layer upon layer into the horizon. Well this is the green of time. The green that grows from nothing, anything if left for long enough.”
It comes at first as mildew and mould. A misting of green-grey, or mustard-green, the green of decay. But then it grows into a verdant palette of new life: leaf green, lime green, the green of fresh new shoots.
Over time, the place where no man could step without risk of arrest or bloody death, or international crises other life slowly takes hold. Cacti tumble from balconies, palms spring up in the middle of roads. Each one has a timer set ticking, a marker of time passed in a bloody stalemate.
Extracted from: Islands of Abandonment
“What happens when humans foresake and ruin landscapes? They are never truly abandoned. Instead they are engulfed by the non-human world and they become teeming with many other foresaken wild lifeforms. The weeds, plants, insects, birds and large mammals move in and populate these places. Pushed to the brink of extinction elsewhere by the ever-expanding need for human progress – these ugly, abandoned fringes of our world are the places where these animals can finally breathe a sigh of relief.” ~ Cal Flynn
Islands of Abandonment is a book-length poem and an ode to the places humans have used, abused and then rejected due to pollution, war, or physical danger.
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