Wednesday July 8th, 2020 Water Blog

A HAPPY BIRTHDAY WITH BIG DREAMS

In Martin Luther King’s powerful 1963 speech – he says: “Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends. And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.”[1]

My darling eldest has a special birthday today. And while singing happy birthday for 20 seconds when washing hands, we acknowledge that having reached a significant birthday, there are lots of dreams being fulfilled and many more to be met.

Being a parent, I enjoy these very special moments – but fear that the richness of resources and beauty around us will not be the same for our generations to come.  COVID-19 has shown that by slowing down, and in some cases stopping, we can improve our environment.  We have bees in the garden, butterflies galore, less noise, more birdsong and less air pollution. But do we want to go back to the old normal, or can we envisage a better world for our young people?

Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, by W. B. Yeats

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

[1]  Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream Speech 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.