I enjoyed the recent issue of Sofia. The theme, of course, resonates particularly with anyone African born; my sister-in-law the Vicar would love Tony Windross’s article on baptisms; Dominic Kirkham was as ever excellent.
I hope someone can be found to carry on the editorship, though they will be all too aware they have a hard act to follow.
Before you go, I hope you will revisit climate change. The next generation will judge us, above all else, by our response to global warming (nuclear wipeout aside). One thing dismays me: no matter where or how I raise the main question, it is deflected.
As I’ve said before, I could be back bleating about the denial of the obvious in Ian Smith’s Rhodesia. For most, perhaps, the truth is reluctantly absorbed but it is taboo to mention it because no one likes to think of bad endings.
But how should we react? Approaching 83 years of age I’m as congenitally cheerful as ever – but at the same time helpless and defeated.
Now, I do know my appreciation of poetry is stuck in the early post Second World War era and this appreciation is the opposite of multi-layered (a popular phrase now). But, anyway, I’ll send you this partial distillation of a lifetime’s thought.
Digby Hartridge
Bristol
Saving a Tree
‘Leave room for hope’, they whine. But what is hope where thought is wishful? I cannot know but my best surmise Must be that we’re lemmings Or swine over a cliff, That cruelty and greed Will finish the job Of destroying our world For many a millennium. True courage would be to spell it out Unrelentingly. We can show love, Show kindness And joke. Laugh.. And I can make plans of mitigation, Proudly preserve an ailing apple tree.