The Demo Site

Stewart Udall and I were walking briskly through his uncluttered garage on our way to plant a very large evergreen tree when I suddenly froze. From a low shelf next to a jar of humates, a bust seemed to be glaring at my boots.

“Is that president Kennedy” I asked.

"No. Frost.” He must have seen the look on my face. “Ole Robert’s got a great big chip on his left ear, but you can have him if you want him.”

“What? Wow,” I replied, “ I mean. Are you SURE?” Of course JFK’s interior secretary was sure. He wanted me to have him, and I still have him. Having just learned of the passing of one of the most effective pioneers of the environmental movement, here is a Frost poem to ponder:

“THE GIFT OUTRIGHT”

The land was our before we were the land’s.

She was our land more than a hundred years

Before we were her people. She was ours

In Massachusetts, in Virginia,

But we were England’s, still colonials,

Possessed by what we now no more possessed.

Something we were withholding made us weak

Until we found out that it was ourselves

We were withholding from our land of living,

And forthwith found salvation in surrender.

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright

(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)

To the land vaguely realizing westward,

But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,

Such as she was, such as she would become.

--for John F. Kennedy at his Inauguration

Today, we in the environmental movement withhold a similar power, the power to be productive, to enhance our environment, to give ourselves the gift of our own salvation. Will we remain forever in this state of stupefied surrender, or will we realize that it has been our own selves making us weak? Hopefully, the spirit of Stewart Udall will motivate us toward what we must become, a gift outright to future generations.