"Shine" by Joni Mitchell

 

2012

Oh, let your little light shine
Let your little light shine
Shine on Vegas and Wall Street
Place your bets
Shine on all the fishermen
With nothing in their nets
Shine on rising oceans and evaporating seas
Shine on our Frankenstein technologies
Shine on science
With its tunnel vision, tunnel vision
Shine on fertile farmlands
Buried under subdivisions

Oh, let your little light shine
Oh, let your little light shine
Shine on the dazzling darkness
That restores us in deep sleep
Shine on what we throw away
And what we keep

Shine on Reverend Pearson
Who threw away
The vain old God
And kept Dickens and Rembrandt and Beethoven
And fresh plowed sod
Shine on good earth, good air, good water
And a safe place
For kids to play
Shine on bombs exploding
Half a mile away

Oh, let your little light shine
Let your little light shine, shine, shine
Shine on worldwide traffic jams
Honking day and night
Shine on another asshole
Passing on the right
Shine on all the red light runners
Busy talking on their cell phones
Shine on the Catholic Church
And the prisons that it owns
Shine on all the Churches
They all love less and less
Shine on a hopeful girl
In a dreamy dress

Oh, let your little light shine
Shine, shine, shine
Let your little light shine
Shine on good humor
Shine on good will
Shine on lousy leadership
Licensed to kill
Shine on dying soldiers
In patriotic pain
Shine on mass destruction
In some God's name
Shine on the pioneers
Those seekers of mental health
Craving simplicity
They traveled inward
Past themselves
Let their little lights shine
May all their little lights shine

"Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell

 

Traffic on Snowdon in 1947

They paved paradise, put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot
(Ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop, ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop)

They took all the trees put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar an' a half just to see 'em

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot
(Ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop, ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop)

Hey farmer, farmer put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples, but leave me the birds and the bees
Please

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot
(Ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop, ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop)

Late last night I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi took away my old man

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot (ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop)

I said don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot (ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop)
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot (ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop)
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot

The garden's progress; insects, birds, and urban wildlife

A large lawn is like a paved parking lot; it is better than a parking lot but not a lot better. I can see this everyday in my garden; a garden attracts a variety of insects, more insects every summer, and more birds every summer, a lawn doesn't attract anything. If this is important to you, or interests you, then plant more flowers or vegetables, plant a perennial garden; this way you'll be making a home for insects, birds, and urban wildlife that will never know you have made their habitat a better one for them, they will make use of your garden as they would anywhere else in the natural world. Also, you'll be making your environment a lot nicer for yourself and you'll also be doing a service to the insects, birds, and urban wildlife. One of the good things about nature is that it doesn't take long for it to return; the only ghosts in ghost towns are human ones, nature is quick to move in and make deserted towns their own. In the old days we all sang Joni Mitchell's song, "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot", now we know that the parking lot didn't necessarily last long and paradise returned.  

Photographs of my garden taken on July 7, 2022.

The next morning I took these photos: