To Differ

I view the devastation of the forest
with the bleak vision of one who
has been betrayed both by the imperious
majesty of nature and the compensatory
hand of humankind. The once-forested
entrance to the wooded ravine has been
ravished, laid bare, deforested, a silent
picture of desolation. This place to which
I daily repair is one shared by many 
among whom a woman who declares
her unbridled love of nature, herself
daily venturing to its cool green shelter
a forest teeming with vistas of the seasons
with birds and insects and animals whose
presence enriches the environment and
my experience. The balance of the forest
lies untouched, spared the intrusion of
remediation responding to the ravine's
saturated hills collapsing. In time the
engineers and the huge tracked vehicles
the cranes and the bulldozers will be
removed, trees replanted and the forest
returned. In its present state it represents
a scarred and empty place, yawning like
a chasm, a void, deplorably vulnerable and
bare. And she, my nature-loving friend gazes
happily at this ruined landscape, smiling
rhapsodizing over its splendid 'open feel'
and that the enclosing forest has been happily
supplanted by a clear sightline where, she
sighs, she can see 'far and wide', how nice!