for our grandchildren's grandchildren

 Of An American Land Ethic

why is a land ethic not dominant in American culture?

a commitment of a lasting, deep, loving relationship

of our species with our world?

Horace Kephart loved the Smokies

and despaired of how many children of Appalachia

had no "I . . . Thou" relationship with the land they loved,

despaired of how easily for them forest and mountain became just things,

with no more commitment to them than to a coin,

just something to be used at a whim,

like spoiled children, they were centered on self,

not on a grand sense of self,

rather on a narrow sense like a five year-old at their birthday party,

where self-indulgence is the order of the day,

no thought of the other, except in terms of what the other can give,

we required our own children to work and earn money

for the Christmas gifts they would give,

so that they could learn reciprocity,

a deepening commitment to the other, to the relationship,

to give so that we might better deserve to receive,

I wander the woods, both physically and metaphorically,

and I hope that, as a species, we can grow up

and believe in leaving a world that is better than we found it,

a world that welcomes and celebrates our grandchildren's grandchildren,

a party only lasts a short time,

the days after should be about hope,

not about the wreckage of the mess created,

the dominion we feel we were given

should be more of stewardship than of exploitation,

the eyes in the mirror of who we are

are also of those we do not yet know,

us when we find the right ethic of the land,

when we realize that who we are is larger and grander

than the lesser self that pulls at us,

to deny that only dessert is what we need.

by Henry H. Walker

October 18, ‘26