I just attended a meeting of Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, a re-chartering of the organization that successfully kept I-40 from tearing through the heart of our City over over 3 decades ago.

In a city that doesn’t value it’s history back much farther than “the young Elvis”, it is refreshing to see a group dedicated to preserving some little piece of the ancient forest.

I hummed this traditional Celtic song all the way home – an early environmental protest song, addressing England’s devastation of Ireland’s ancient oak forests for military and shipbuilding.

BONNIE PORTMORE

O bonny Portmore, I am sorry to see
Such a woeful destruction of your ornament tree
For it stood on your shore for many’s the long day
Till the long boats from Antrim came to float it away.

O bonny Portmore, you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you the more I think long
If I had you now as I had once before
All the lords in Old England would not purchase Portmore.

All the birds in the forest they bitterly weep
Saying, “Where shall we shelter, where shall we sleep?”
For the Oak and the Ash, they are all cutten down
And the walls of bonny Portmore are all down to the ground.”

O bonny Portmore, you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you the more I think long
If I had you now as I had once before
All the Lords of Old England would not purchase Portmore.

A beautiful version from Loreena McKennitt’s ” The Visit”