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HarcourtArt

For we have been here a thousand years and we see the change about us as a passing moment in our lives. We sense the draft as you, little yellow caterpillar, bruise the soils and murder our weaker jungle friends in the name of your game to inhabit our realm. Our god gives us sun and rain and wind to prune our souls, and against which we preen our bodies, branch out and strengthen ready for another eon. And we survive.

You, little yellow machine, will wear yourself out and be gone to rust and disintegrate back to the particles from which you were made and alas we know another machine arrives. Bigger, redder and more ugly than you against the quiet growth of my jungle friends, that machine will also fail and grow weak and in a trice be gone to its graveyard, as we live on decade after decade. That I cannot move to help is a blessing as we, with my cousins all about, provide the stanchions of this place from which all other life abounds. The pillars of the tanglement in which we and our companions thrive. As great great grandfathers of these territories, we will be here long after you have evaporated and be supporting our botanic companions who will flourish again. 

And your god, for five seconds of our long life will have made a mark, built a castle for his fawning friends to flop and frolick briefly.  And maybe your earthly god can secure some temporary joy albeit unshared behind gates and partitioned from my friends of the true jungle. And with it, an emptiness will pervade. It already does. As you bear up the ground in your awkward angular movements and bring unwanted noise and incongruous colour, dear yellow machine, you bring an obvious vacancy to our corner.

And, yellow or red or dirty caterpillar it matters not, as you inflict these blemishes about this precious spot: and remove the little shop that sits so benignly at our feet serving a quiet resolute populus so well and for so long: and as we remember the reality of extinctions given to many civilisations across the world, for our seeds are 100 million years old , we trust your god will be kind, be considerate and allow us good clearance at our feet with the space to breath , places to accommodate our cohort so at least we remain in good heart to weather this temporary intrusion ready for the inevitable new generations to enjoy. And our god be with you all the way. Alternately turn around now and we will recover our ground all the quicker.