#MIDDLEBURY
Song as Abridged Thesis of George Perkin Marsh’s Man & Nature
Major Jackson
(Poem on the Occasion of the Centenary of the National Park Service)
The pendulous branches of the Norway spruce slowly move
as though approving our gentle walk in Woodstock,
and the oak leaves yellowing this early morning
fall in the parking lot of Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller.
We hear beneath our feet their susurrus
as the churning of wonder, found, too, in the eyes of a child
who has just sprinted toward a paddock of Jersey cows.
The fate of the land is the fate of man.
Some have never fallen in love with a river of grass
or rested in the dignity of the Great Blue Heron
standing alone, saint-like, in a marshland nor envied
the painted turtle sunning on a log, nor thanked as I have,
the bobcat for modeling how to navigate dynasties of snow,
for he survives in both forests and imaginations
away from the dark hands of developers and myths of profits.
The fate of the land is the fate of man.
Some are called to praise as holy, hillocks, ponds, and brooks,
to renew the sacred contract of live things everywhere,
the cold pensive roamings of clouds above Mount Tom,
to extol silkworm and barn owls, gorges and vales,
the killdeer, egret, tern, and loon; some must rest
at the sandbanks, in deep wilderness, by a lagoon,
estuaries or floodplain, standing in the way of the human storm:
the fate of the land is the fate of man.
About this poem
“In cataloguing the harmful effects of man’s impact on Earth from both a historical and scientific perspective, George Perkins Marsh, diplomat, scholar and writer from Vermont, effectively launched the environmental movement as we know it today. His was the first and loudest cry to call attention to deforestation, over-fishing and soil erosion, among other abuses, which led to the founding of the National Forest System and the National Park Service, signed into existence by an Act of Congress on Aug. 25, 1916.” – Major Jackson
About Major Jackson
Major Jackson is the author of “Roll Deep” (W.W. Norton, 2015). He is a university distinguished professor of English at the University of Vermont and lives in South Burlington, Vt.
This poem was commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and funded by a National Endowment for the Arts Imagine Your Parks grant. Imagine Your Parks grants celebrate the centennial of the National Park Service and the 50th anniversary of the NEA by supporting projects that use the arts to engage people with the memorable places and landscapes of the National Park System in 2016.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
(c) 2016 Major Jackson. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
