Matthew Cmiel
Our planet Earth is heartbreakingly beautiful, frighteningly awesome, and, to our newfound consternation, a fragile and threatened place. Glaciers are melting, places are disappearing, and life forms are becoming extinct. Living in cities, these truths can fade into the background of our lives. We can still experience beauty and awe if we seek it out, and we can find ways to effectively respond to the problems if we have the courage to act. We need to find new ways to take care of the Earth, to protect it, because as the poet Wallace Stevens so wisely tells us, no matter where our attention is, The giant is there, nevertheless...
“I thought on the train how utterly we have forsaken the Earth, in the sense of excluding it from our thoughts. There are but few who consider its physical hugeness, its rough enormity. It is still a disparate monstrosity, full of solitudes & barrens & wilds. It still dwarfs & terrifies & crushes. The rivers still roar, the mountains still crash, the winds still shatter. Man is an affair of cities. His gardens & orchards & fields are mere scrapings. Somehow, however, he has managed to shut out the face of the giant from his windows. But the giant is there, nevertheless.” –Wallace Stevens