Saturday, East Gippsland
By Michelle Cahill
Published 1 January 2021
White smoke rising from the smouldering, fallen trees
Doused, doused with diesel
Yankee recruits back burning near the border
the near nausea, the almost suffocating stillness
tasting cinders in a mouthful of drinking water
being offline, tuning into bellbirds, radio static
stopping the car, walking into ash, a powdery veil
indecipherable amalgams that sprout new shoots
taking photographs, here, where the sun seems less stern,
where powerlines burned, an entire village without power
humpies off the grid, the squatters who defended them
with obdurate hoses and roof sprinklers, or homebrew
as the firestorm circled, an Armageddon, a mind of its own,
the cattle roaming, the Princes Highway in meltdown
Something like an unresolved melody without the pressure of ideas
a subtle happening, as when the spines of Jersey cows align at sundown
facing dredged dams, facing the passenger-seat side of the valley
The way the yellowing of leaves quietly composes the burnt trees
one among those whose unease simmers, a climate refugee,
returning to what has felt like home, this moment that is becoming,
as when lyrebirds vanish, or small animals shrink into wombat burrows
returning through the white gates; the gates they cannot hold me …
"As a poet, my process embodies scrutiny over invasion" – Reflection – Michelle Cahill