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ARTS AND CULTURE

After the fire

10 February 2020

Selected poems

Queensland Prelude

After the fire

they found a nail preserved in glass,

and piles of dust and ash.

After the fire

this place lost its memory

of trees cleared, a slab hut,

of fences, a verandahed timber house,

and a circle of orange trees.

After the fire

they sift through the ashes

for memory’s sake.

Boxing Day at Gerroa

Smoke today was in the air,

scratching at the eyes and nose.

The declining sun was tomato red,

burning from a hundred fires,

grieving for a land turned black.

Gerroa on vacation.

Black is in this summer:

black togs, black tops, black caps.

black crows pick at yesterday’s scraps;

black oyster catchers, red beaked, probe for worms;

black ash marks out the tidal line —

ash of houses torched and livings lost,

ash of people, trees and birds.

Flying low above the waves

a squadron of white seagulls,

disregards the dress code.

Beach Dawn Service

The red-eyed sun comes veiled in smoke,

the sea is fringed with blackened ash,

the chastened waves murmur threnodies.

Beyond the break stand acolytes,

leaning on their long candles,

waiting to process;

gulls and oyster catchers fret restless on the beach;

a pelican fishes at the river mouth

parked discreetly as a hearse.

The breathless air awaits the hour

when the unveiled sun will rise and blaze

and, for the deflowered earth,

exact a reckoning.

New Years Eve

Today smoke hung in the air

scratching eyes and throat;

the evening sun set red and frayed,

bleeding from a hundred fires,

grieving for an earth stripped black and bare;

the retreating tide was edged with ash.

Today they called a fire ban throughout the state

for safety, in respect and solidarity.

Tonight in Sydney fireworks desecrate the bridge;

Respect and solidarity are burned to ash,

chucked on the bonfire of frivolity.

New Years Day

Smoke in the air,

bushfires south of Nowra,

no sun to be seen, no landmarks along the beach,

no bookends of Black Head, and Coolongatta,

no hinterland, no hills,

no oyster birds, no crows,

no walkers.

Only a flight of gulls crying, seeking purer air,

only breakers washing in and out,

only a jagged line of black ash along the shore,

like the script on Belshazzar’s wall,

trailing back to bushfires south of Nowra,

trailing forward to the future

for those who will to read.

A respite day

Today the sun rose silver,

the smoke now blown away,

the beach now bounded by Black Head and Coolangatta.

Long waves rise and tumble on the shore

and people walk freely.

Tomorrow, at Nowra the hot wind will blow,

the fire will cross the Shoalhaven,

ash, smoke and fear will stain the air.

Apocalypse, Gerroa style.

The sun rises blood-red,

its furnace wreathed in smoke;

four horsemen drum and thunder down the beach;

four oyster-catchers fly wailing over