Glad of these times?

I came across this poem by Helen Dunmore recently. I think it holds some important messages for anyone involved in Transition.

We are (at least I am, and I'm guessing I'm not alone) promoting Transition because we see that, in the future, the reduction in oil (and the need to reduce carbon emissions) means we will have to change and the change you choose is always more palatable than the change that is forced on you.

Of course Transition is just one response to the threat and, if I am honest I am also involved because transition because I love the notion of local resilience; of relearning crafts and skills; of wildfires and woodland, food in fields, home baked bread, the gentle chuck of hens in the garden.

Helen Dunmore's paean to:

'tyre music, speed
annulling the peasant graves
of all my ancestors'

is a challenge to all that is unrealistic and misty eye'd about this as well as a reminder of all we have gained through science and technology. It's not negligible. It has been liberating in all sorts of ways and some of it may be hard to sustain through the changes that will come.

Do we take enough account of this? Do we take enough account of the allegiance we feel to the quality of life and freedoms progress and cheap energy have brought us? Anyway, here's the poem:

Glad of these times

Driving along the motorway
swerving the packed lanes
I am glad of these times.

Because I did not die in childbirth
because my children will survive me
I am glad of these times.

I am not hungry, I do not curtsey,
I lock my door with my own key
and I am glad of these times,

glad of central heating and cable TV
glad of email and keyhole surgery
glad of power showers and washing machines,

gals of polio inoculations
glad of three weeks paid holiday
glad of smart cards and cash-back,

glad of twenty types of yoghurt
glad of cheap flights to Prague
glad that I work.

I do not breathe pure air or walk green lanes
see darkness, hear silence,
make music, tell stories,

tend the dead in their dying
tend the newborn in their birthing,
tend the fire in it's breathing,

but I am glad of my times,
these times, the age
we feel in our bones, our rage

of tyre music, speed
annulling the peasant graves
of all my ancestors,

glad of my hands on the wheel
and the cloud of grit as it rises
where JCBs move motherly
widening the packed motorway.

Helen Dunmore

It's a great poem.