ABSTRACT
Let's return to the poem at the start of this book. 'A green thought in a green shade' - Andrew Marvell's image is intriguingly ambiguous. This is both material and metaphysical poetry. It looks beyond human life. The poem is about a garden. A garden is a human artefact, of course, but it is also where we mostly experience the more than human world - nature. The poem conjures delight in the natural wealth a garden provides. Today humanity has the power to make the whole world into a garden. But do we want to? How do we want to relate to the more than human world that, entirely without human intervention, provides immense abundance of life, and support for humanity? Green cities 'in a green shade' would tread less heavily on that natural abundance.
