A Few Flowers
There are small gullies – little more
than dents in the landscape –
which the fires, amazingly, missed.
Here, already, tiny shoots put forth
and even a few flowers.
The rest of the ground
has been scorched hard,
has become stone.
(I do not exaggerate.)
Nothing will grow on those hectares.
‘The Australian bush,’
optimists remind us,
‘regenerates after fire.’
It’s not as simple as that.
Depends what kind of fire, and where.
Depends what kind of vegetation
whether it will regenerate, and how.
Some ancient trees will never grow again.
Never be seen again. Nothing
will bring them back.
‘Re-introduce koalas to the wild,’
the optimists advocate.
What wild? Do you not understand
the huge loss of habitat? Do you not
know of all the other unique, bereft creatures?
As the fire front bore down on them,
cattle dropped suddenly dead
from instant loss of oxygen.
The fire ate the oxygen out of the air.
(Still, better than burning to death.)
And yet – into the big deep burrows
that are home to wombats
came birds, lizards, wallabies,
all manner of living beings crowding in,
and the wombats made room.
Although, when they emerged,
it was to nowhere – the trees now sticks,
the earth stone – there are some narrow,
missed strips of grass; there are
those tiny gullies, those few wildflowers.
Written for Sanaa's Weekly Scribblings #5: A Mouthful Of Flowers at Poets and Storytellers United. And shared at the earthweal Weekly Challenge: Renewal.
In case you're in any doubt – this is not fictional.
As mentioned in the poem, re wombat burrows (but added later): see for yourself.
We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage /
And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, /
We Poets of the proud old lineage /
Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why ...
(James Elroy Flecker)
The landscape you paint in the opening stanza broke my heart, those ‘dents in the landscape / which the fires, amazingly, missed’. The tiny shoots and flowers certainly bring hope. I believe that one plantsure to grow back after fire is rosemary!
ReplyDeleteThanks for that last remark, Kim, but I fear this particular one has become scarred and twisted.
DeleteThis is incredibly poignant, Rosemary. Indeed, the loss of habitat is enormous and I am shuddering at the thought of "some ancient trees will never grow again." And yet there is a glimmer of hope in those few wildflowers which the fires have missed .. it seems miraculous .. so I hope and pray that all will be well.. and soon. Thank you so much for writing to the prompt. 💝
ReplyDeleteThank you, Sanaa – and for the prompt which enabled me to write it. Every detail is factual.
DeleteEven a handful of wildflowers = hope!
ReplyDeleteWhat can i say? ah the resilience of Wildflowers
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much love...
Thank goodness for the small hope offered by the wildflowers. So much has been lost, they almost feel like funeral flowers for the grave of what was once a diverse ecosystem.
ReplyDeleteThis is horrible, horrid, horrific...not the poetry, but the picture/situation it captures. The poetry is perfect. I am fully commiserable.
ReplyDeleteDesolation indeed, and I have looked at some of those photos of the bush "coming back to life." Most of it is sucker growth on weakened trees which will later die, and some hardy weeds--as a horticulturist I don't see the original habitat coming back, but the scars and filler material Nature digs out of her pockets when she has nothing else. In your poem I can feel the emptiness and pain, and the many long years of effort ahead it will take to try to to reverse what happened so quickly. But I am glad for the beginnings of wildflowers, and the dens of the wombats.
ReplyDeleteYou're one of the few with some real understanding. (Although, to use a word like 'reverse'....)
DeleteThank you Rosemary for writing about this tragedy. Here the media seems to have forgotten Australia. I have found it hard to get news about the fire and especially the aftermath. My heart is with you and all who grieve the devastation there.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Myrna, for caring. I didn't realise we were already old news in some quarters. There are still fires burning here. Some of the old, vast ones have finally been put out, but new ones keep arising, all over the country. Most are dealt with fairly quickly, but not all can be.
DeleteI can't not write about it. When I begin to write, that is always what is there to be expressed. My poetry has never been so dark, but so be it; I think it must be said. One of our jobs is to bear witness.
I think renewal after a disaster like this will be something no-one alive today will see. From a geological perspective maybe it will see growth again.
ReplyDeleteOh it breaks my heart to know so much of the land is so devastated there is plant life (and animal species) gone forever. Your words are powerful. Hope is truly a fragile chord these days.
ReplyDeleteSo easy to understand why only words to describe the devastation flow from your pen. Such unspeakable tragedy for wildlife and for people who called these areas home. We can only send healing thoughts.
ReplyDeleteSadly humanity has lost sight of how this world works and seems happy to destroy, land, sea and all ceaturse therein just for profit. Nature explains with such events as this both in Australia and world wide. How I fear for the future of our children and grandchildren.
ReplyDeleteRosemary, this is sooo sad. You can't help but feel sorry for the critters. They hurt, they are saddened, the may even cry. I would cry. One thing those animals don't give up easily, their instinct is to survive, and many will. The trees suffered even worse, they cannot run from danger, they stand in place and take their beating. We have forests here in East Texas, full of critters to. Don't forget the birds as well, feathers singe very easily.
ReplyDeleteYou told this beautifully.
..
Thank you for sharing a glimpse of hope in the middle of so much devastation. A lot has been lost, and none of it should be forgotten. But it’s also good to see what remains... and what might come back.
ReplyDeleteThe devastation and loss, it will decades before it will be a poor reflection of what it once was. Your words are a stark reminder and I wish you well. The loss of the ancient tree - oh, the loss is shared.
ReplyDeleteAll we can hope, wish and pray is a renewal. But how difficult it is! On You Tube I see still some fires are burning and it's still not peak time of summer. I cannot imagine what hardship, both physical and mental is going there. In times of misery wildflowers seem to be part of all life bringing whatever pleasantness they could. A beautiful poem, Rosemary.
ReplyDeleteVery well done Rosemary -- 'Tis said Australia's ecosystems have long been geared for fire -- renewal has always been a part of the landscape -- But with the exceeses brought by climate change, the whole balance may be so off-kilter that what survives may look very different from the past. Jellyfish take over in seas turning alkaline from too much C02, the fish are disappearing and shellfish are melting. Renewal continues, but what comes back may be very strange and foreign to us. Humans have never been good at understanding the complexity of ecosystems, how tipping points spring all sorts of unknowns. Thanks for bringing this to earthweal - Brendan
ReplyDeleteIt's not only climate change; it's also the number of introduced plant species, and the fact that even indigenous ones have been moved to regions where they don't belong, so we get some highly flammable trees etc growing in areas prone to fire. And it's that the non-Indigenous population, who have the power, don't know how to read a landscape, and don't understand that safety measures like back burning shouldn't be done in the same way and at the same time all over the country. And so on and so on. It's highly complex.
DeleteThis is heart-breaking to read, to think of as truth, as a possible horror that actually happened. I do hope some plants, trees, and animals will thrive again.
ReplyDeleteWell, it's not the whole country (yet), just many parts of it.
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