In the lead up to release of the Devil in the Wind poetry collection a little later in the year, here is the second of my poems about the savage bushfires we experienced in 2003.
Mt Buffalo 30/01/2019
… the heat rises…
from Perth
across the Nullarbor
until Adelaide
then through Bordertown …
it was always my impression that the weather we experienced in the South Eastern corner of Australia came to us from across the continent, travelling east to west to get here, rather than down from the North, although that pattern seems to have changed in recent years, with very evident graphical evidence on the weather charts of weather trending down to us from the upper portions of the continent in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
In some ways, these impressions of weather are proven false, even in the writing of the poem, which describes an aeroplane journey from East to West, tracking the effects of bushfire all the way.
… we inhaled the acrid leftover taste
last remains transported in smoke
as we left the ground
For the most part, civilian onlookers experience bushfires as images on television, or news reports on the radio. Perhaps billows of smoke in the distance.
I have a vivid recall of becoming terrified by the potency of the images that I saw on the television, that year. In particular, wildfires savaged the outskirts of our capital city, Canberra, and the ferocity of driven embers and licking flames was a harbinger of things to come, and has remained etched in my mind ever since.
That year, I flew from Melbourne to Adelaide at the height of the fires and through a thousand kilometers of journeying, a smoke cloud led the way, from point to point.
that dirty brown that is distinction
from mere cloud
unbroken to the long away
of the horizon
There is a cruel and imperious majesty in the power of wildfire. Enough to bring me to prayer and supplication in support of a cool change to blow like a frigid wrath as a kindness of weather, from the west.
The poem mentions temperature extremes of 41 degrees and 44 degrees. On Black Saturday in 2009, we experienced consecutive days of 46 degrees. This year (2019) we seem to live in the forty degree range, with a peak so far of 45.6 degrees.
As I write, Tasmania is burning.
weather from the West
we get our weather from the West
the heat rises there
the cool descends
from Perth
across the Nullarbor
until Adelaide
then through Bordertown
to claim the chequerboard of spaces
from the Murray in the North
inland over the Great Divide
to the Bay
to the ocean
~
it is 1,000k
from the place that claims me
to Adelaide
a mere moment
and a time change
through the skies
we inhaled the acrid leftover taste
last remains transported in smoke
as we left the ground
Victoria is burning
and the dead ash
the loose particle-debris
infiltrated even the metallic lungs
of an aeroplane
and when at last the air
seemed clean enough again
to inspire
it stretched below us
that dirty brown that is distinction
from mere cloud
unbroken to the long away
of the horizon
1,000k of ash
spread smooth to catch us
should we perhaps to fall
before arrival
~
for two long days
the temperature has risen
41C 44C
the weather of the west
I feel it on my skin
I picture it
as a magnifier of flame
incendiary to the dry grass
and brittle bracken
intensifying the cruelties of endurance
adding ash and char
to fill the whole of the sky
to suck dry any foolish last-hopes
but today there is change
true
the wind will not be helpful
but it is cool
with the phantom smell
of a few fat droplets
striking the dusted ground
only so very few
but above all
cool
and now I am thinking
if truly we get our weather
from the West
then god speed this chill blast
these handful wet splatter-drops
may they pass
like a frigid wrath
from here
in the West of weather
to home
~
