Places have their Identity

places have their identity,
as flowers or creatures have
their souls or ‘genius loci’
a place in nature is after all
only a larger and more complex organism
a symbiosis of many lives

all inviolate places have this wholeness
of essence; their perfection lies in
their remaining intact
undisturbed by the intrusion of any life
which does not itself participate
in that harmonious organic unity


Kathleen Raine (1908 – 2003) Farewell Happy Fields