There are two fundamentally different senses of what can be called “land-use.” In one of those senses, to use the land is precisely to exploit it. An altogether different sense of use does not exploit the land, draining it of all its own wealth, but instead cultivates the land, to further enrich it.

Language has a tendency to flatten itself out through circulation, in which process words gradually lose their power to speak—and in speaking, to let what is be seen.