2d ago
Bats or Newts? A Lament
Send us a textWords: Jon SwalesMusic: Sad Emotional Piano- Copyright Free Music via YouTube “Bats or great crested newts?”“Neither, because I want growth,” Rachel Reeves. The Times Interview- Quick Fire Questions——-‘Bats or Great Crested Newts?’‘Neither,because I want growth.’And the earth exhales,a long, low breath,threaded with dust and diesel.Once, we were called to tend and keep,to walk with careamong the creatures of feather and scale,but now we measure worthin units of concrete and steel.The hum of engines drowns outthe song of the land.Economic growth has become god,its temples rising in glass and stone,its gospel preached in numbersthat do not bleed or bloom.The rivers hold their tongues,the forests lean away,and the bats,those ancient scribes of dusk,write their farewellagainst a sky that forgets.‘Neither,because I want growth.’Beneath the tarmac skin of the world,the great crested newts wait,pressed into the damp earth,their stories unravelledby a people who no longer listen.They were here before us,in the time when the landwas a gift, not a resource.‘Neither,because I want growth.’But the wild ones know.They whisper of a garden,a covenant,a calling shaped from soil and breath.We were dust once,and to dust we shall return—but not before we have paved it all over.‘Neither,because I want growth.’And the earth waits,as it always has,watches the rising towersand falling wings,feels the weightof our forgetting.Still, it murmurs beneath our feet,a quiet, unbroken plea—remember,remember,before all that remainsis hunger.- Rev’d Jon Swales, 2025
