Trees down and stacked. Green grass smashed, ground into dirt and mud. A mighty gash torn into the wall of forest and woods.

Another field dying.

That’s how the sight strikes me along one of my regular walking routes.

The death of another beautiful field.

Granted, it’s not my property. Whoever owns it, properly zoned, can do what they wish with it. That’s the nature of progress and development for a city.

Not too many decades ago, the site of the Valdosta Mall was a field and everything around it, which is now full of shops and businesses, restaurants and movie theatres, and a circulatory system of roads, was woods.

Things change. Property is developed. People build things.

Development of property provides jobs; new buildings employ people. It pays the bills. It invests in the community.

But, man alive, it better be something for the loss of that field and the downing of all of those beautiful trees.

That field where deer step from the woods and watch the passing cars from a safe distance.

That field where the occasional fox slinks.

That field where a turtle occasionally turns around, trodding back into the grass upon reaching the road.

That field where the long necks of cranes bob through the tall grass.

That field where dragonflies hover above the long stems in deep summer.

That field where geese land and rise and squawk when morning fog lingers and the woods appear as bluish gray smudges in the distance.

That field drinking the hard rains, the pounding raindrops, absorbing the water into its being.

That field where the stars shine like diamonds on a cool, clear night. Shine so bright they’re like the freckles of God stretching his back for a nap above the earth.

That field where the eye can’t help but notice the changes of the season, the subtle shifts of colors and textures.

That field that rustles and whispers in a breeze.

That field …

I’m sure it will be a beautiful building.

Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times.