Bushfire

King Parrot Creek
 (Saturday, 7 February 2009)

The day before, I drove due north from Kinglake West
Steepling down alongside the free-flowing water, past
Hazeldene, Flowerdale, as usual admiring
Its forested valley, steep-sided, sunlight-washed,
Dapple-shadowed; and tree-shrouded, life-buzzing homes.

On the day, fire flew south from Kilmore to Kinglake,
Wind-turned north, and drove down the hapless King Parrot:
A tree-felling gale, swarming embers, the awful
Bellowing darkness of a huge smoke-filled furnace,
Melting metal and bone at twelve hundred degrees.

The day after, the ghastly accounting began. 

Calling Biff and JJ

Observed for twenty years, 

Close by to Hazeldene,

On the Kinglake-Yea road

(As you drive towards Yea),

 Indelible and bold,

‘Biff and JJ’ scrawled on

The back of a road sign.

All those years driving by,

Wondering, now and then,

Who were they, what were they?

Mates, lovers (or would-be)?

Why the mix of nickname

And double initials? 

How shaped, and what, their lives?

Then came Black Saturday.

Biff and JJ’s road sign

Was consumed by flame that

Stormed down King Parrot creek.

Were they there in the fire?

The sign has been replaced.

The back of it is blank.

Summer’s Two Sides

November starts the count-down:
Summer’s about to come in.

Holidays, pool, beach and sports field,
Beguile and beckon city folk
To a time of pleasure and rest.

But country hearts are heavy with 
The sure promise that anxious eyes  
Will scour scorched horizons for smoke.  

So its end, city-mourned, spurs
Sighs of relief in the bush.

Thought

In a dry land nothing is sweeter

Than the thunder of pelting rain

On an old-fashioned iron roof. 

A Perspective on Lightning

Heroic, noble,
Proud red-headed Thor, 
Black clouds astriding,
Mighty, applauded
When his great hammer 
Strikes in cold Norseland.

But when it strikes south
In Murrindindi’s 
Tinder-dry summers,
Over land where folk
Have recently burned,
Dread rides on its head.

The Fire Farmers

In a country made to burn,

They used fire to groom the land

For hunting, gathering and

To give them summer safety.

They were its master, damping

Its wild ways in cooler months,

Selectively burning what,

As and when their lore foretold.

And so garnered rough comfort:

Food certain and easy gained,

Time ample for ritual,

And a shield against wildfire.

But that wisdom’s dead, dying

With the old men when they lost

Country to settlers who saw

Fire as a foe, not a tool.

So we fear summer’s flares, yet 

Squabble over undergrowth

That the fire farmers cool-burned

As a matter of course.

 [With acknowledgements to Bill Gammage’s  

The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia]