The Fate of Flying Things

You’re pleasantly surprised to find your windscreen’s clear of bugs, yet strangely chilled by the hush of a world falling out of love 

if you’d have blown up the science lab at school, well, there’d be hoo-haa for sure, barred from chemistry, your parents would be called 

But when you all hatched your expert plans for greatly increased yields, you were allowed to take your wretched reckless madness outside into the fields 

in poison the lie of the land is steeped in 

sell-out science sings to defend the senseless sin 

But if a spaceship arrived to write it in the sky, behold: The fate of flying things will be the fate of humankind 

Tiny eggs in secret places 

Tiny eggs in secret places, of messengers of life 

each heartbeat a billion stitches, in the tapestry of life 

Don’t we dig that we’re all related? 

We really are in this together 

Ooh, yeah, I’m taking flight now . . . 

Dream of a world that lives in its natural order, dream that there can be meadows and hedgerows and farm borders  

How insane can this be? 

Surely the bees should have earned respect by now, timeless workers, whose deeds are so much greater than the plough   

Music by Matt Hall; Lyrics and melody by John Harris

Soundtrack by Matt Hall; Vocals by John Harris

Produced by John Harris and Matt Hall; Engineered by Matt Hall at SLW Studio.

A study in forests in Germany first recorded a precipitous drop in insect populations.  People had long been noticing the decline of insects on their windscreens.  Insects are a vital part of life in the biosphere and this should be a shrill alarm.  The biosphere is what we should be talking about, the mesh of interactive systems which sustains life on Earth. And of the biosphere’s dislocation.  Words like environment are unsatisfactory, and fails to understand that this is a living system.  Climate change sounds like a mild seasonal turning, rather than the destruction of a natural wonder.  Whether of a religious persuasion or not, it feels appropriate to feel a religious awe towards this living system.  Indeed, as it was in the beginning, a religious kind of awe towards land and nature may be essential to humanity’s survival.