Quiet

When I sit quietly in the forest listening to the wind blow through the trees My thoughts stop and I just listen, to the shuff shuff of a squirrel through the leaves. Off in the distance I hear a deer running, escaping the smell and sound of man. Then it is quiet again all that I hear is the wind blowing overhead through the bare limbed trees increasing and decreasing in speed it makes a varied howling sound that is reminiscent of a distant train whistle.
It is so peaceful that it is hard to to believe that a few miles away all that is heard is the sound of man. the roar of the cars, screeching of tires, the ringing of telephones the scream of leaf blowers all drowning out the sound of nature.
I often wish for a simpler time where transportation requires a horse or walking. Living close to the earth, heating with wood stoves and no air conditioning. Hauling water to the kitchen and bath. having an outhouse for a bathroom. Using a summer kitchen to keep the house cooler. Reading real paper books by candle or lantern light.
Getting up at dawn to do the chores, going to bed at dusk to save the candles and oil for the lamps, or reading by firelight.
That time is long gone. Or possible coming again as we rape the earth of resources that can't be replaced. what will we do when the oil runs out and all that is left is the sun and wind for power.
Will we have learned our lesson or will we be raping another world of its resources to perpetuate the technology of this one.
Somehow I don't believe that man will ever learn. He will keep destroying in the name of progress. Scraping the land with his machines until there is no more, and nothing to make the earth breath oxygen back into the atmosphere and man will suffocate in a world of his own making.
At that time the earth will be quiet again and the plants and trees will come back and the few animals left will start the process of evolution again.
Will the next species that learns to talk and make things with its hands do any better, or will they in there turn die in their own technological disaster and the process start over again.