Opinion
MISSING SHAFER
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
Jane’s Beautiful Soul
to experience the Vineyard’s magical majesty
to see the idiosyncracies of each backyard tree
to look at our Island’s night sky as always new
to talk to her dog, Mac, as though to me and you
in one of Jane’s poems entitled My Trees
she hears “screeching sound of saws on trees”
so roads can be made and houses built
in forest where she and a boy once walked
They call it a swarming, much like bees around a hive, but that’s how the Gifford family of Harthaven refers to their annual spring cleanup and construction project weekend. Using school vacations, the entire group of 22 converge to complete tasks ranging from cleaning leaves out of gardens to complex jobs like building fencing and replacing an entire garage roof.
This is a pagan story that happens at Easter. Or an Easter story that happens when pagans attend to the rites of spring. At any rate it has a little girl in bright clothing, grownups in shiny shoes with feathers in their hats, fruits and sweets and new laid eggs on the altar of a woven basket, and two little animals, the centerpiece of this day. Ultimately there will be a sacrifice.
Editor’s Note: The following is excerpted from comments submitted by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission last week to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. The complete text of the comments may be read on the commission’s Web site at mvcommission.org.
That well-worn phrase — climate change. We know it’s out there, hovering over our lives like a heavy cloud. But what does it mean exactly — to you and the Island of Martha’s Vineyard?
It means striking changes in the three most critical components of Island life:
• The natural environment — the air, land and water;
• Our physical well being — our human health;
• The local economy.