Sunday, January 14, 2024

Progress: An illustrated poem about human nature

A heavily wooded forest with a stream running through the middle and a partially obscured buck behind a tree. All illustrations are in black and white.
Illustrations by Willem van der Merwe

A long time ago, the forest extended everywhere, in all directions, a dense canopy of trees.
A majestic sight, it was truly the land of the free.
Then along came a group of settlers who cut a path inland from the sea.

Progress

More boats arrived bringing throngs of people.
We should worship inside a church with a steeple.
Let’s harvest some wood from this wild place and build something regal.

Progress

A man dressed as a pilgrim wearing a prominent wide-brimmed hat and chopping a tree with an axe. Other trees can be seen in the background, along with a pile of stacked logs.

The colonists multiplied and hungry villagers needed a bigger farm.
But man was so smart it was no cause for alarm.
We’ll clear another plot for planting right over here. What could be the harm?

Progress

Approximately 20 tree stumps in the foreground with a buck sniffing/pawing at one of them. In the background are a church with a steeple and approximately 12 rectangularly shaped homes crowded together. The homes have steeply pitched roofs and chimneys with smoke billowing prominently from them.

Soon the village became a town, and then the town grew rapidly into a concrete-filled city.
Our wilderness is disappearing, they lamented. The beautiful landscape has turned gritty.
On one thing they all could agree. This state of affairs was indeed a pity.

Progress

Several tightly packed high-rise buildings that are approximately eight stories tall with a street running between them. Three people can be seen walking on the street, heads down in an almost zombie-like posture. Two cars are parked on the right side of the street as you look at the drawing and a lone cat is walking down the left side of the street, away from the viewer.

Let’s set aside a wooded sanctuary where all God’s creatures can roam as they please.
We’ve bulldozed enough in search of opportunity.
Now we must live in harmony.

Progress

For a time, birds chirped, deer frolicked, and wolves howled.
Until one day a thick, black liquid bubbled up from the park's ground.
It was a discovery so profound.

Progress

A buck, a fox, a bear, a rabbit, and a small cat (possibly a bobcat) crouch around a small, round pool of black, bubbling liquid (oil). All five are peering at it curiously. The background is comprised of three trees and overgrowth, indicating they're at a clearing in the woods.

Such a stroke of good fortune to power our machines.
Our consumption borders on obscene.
But man is the rightful king of beasts and should reign supreme.

Progress

We’ll chop a few more to capitalize on our good luck.
Letting our unbridled greed run amuck.
So what if we break our promise as long as we make a buck?

Progress

With this feeble logic, our actions were justified.
Willingly, we carried out a campaign of genocide.
Ignorant to the fact it was actually suicide.

Progress

And so the pattern repeated.
Soon, every last tree had been defeated.
In this barren wasteland, our home overheated.

Progress

An apocalyptic scene shows a small oil drilling rig in disrepair on the left and a junked car on the right. They're sitting in the dirt on a flat landscape with sparse patches of grass interspersed. The car's front bumper and the visible tire have both fallen off. The roof, hood, and driver's side door are badly dented. In the background are approximately eight high-rise buildings that also look badly dilapidated. In most, the tops are missing as if destroyed by a bomb.

The end should come as no great surprise.
Upending nature’s delicate balance, how did we think we would survive?
In this universe of infinite connections, we caused our own demise.

Progress, finally

A human skull lying sideways on the ground with a small plant growing through one of the eye sockets. A mouse rests its front paws on the skull's forehead and sniffs one of the plant's leaves and a beetle crawls on a rock next to the skull. With humans extinct, the scene conveys a sense of hope that nature is beginning to regenerate.


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