Leavetaking
Trees threshed by fierce wind driving cloud, red-tinged, my nemesis, dark smoke plumes ten miles distant, branches cracking, light a hellish burnt umber, the state blazes, temperature soaring over forty degrees again, a regular horror now despite naysayers’ published scorn of climate change. The jack donkey’s coat fluffs in this wind, strands of his hay scudding before it. My neighbours silhouetted on their hill by shifting smoke are leaving. Driving past, they slow, peer at me, frowning, wave.
Possums scoured juiced orange peels on my compost heaps, inverting them to resemble white bra cups, like an art installation, contrasting with the dark teeming below, and now, above. The empty clothesline sways, days of pegged socks’n’jocks, colour, all gone, gone, children grown. Where six pink and grey galahs perch, silent, feathers ruffled, I sit under their melaleuca watching the car disappear, a Beckett character waiting. For what? So much I love is under threat.
I can’t imagine starting again, beauty razed but for echoed voices, these trodden paths to the heart. Walking about in circles, brittle leaves, small branches, crunching underfoot, grevillea, bottlebrushes, bravely flying their colours in this demonic blast, I feel as helpless as a crushed bird. An eerie soundtrack as in a film by Werner Herzog or Terence Malick would be apt.
My neighbours return, relay that we have been advised by phone to leave. Reluctant, I assure them I shall, voice, meant to sound upbeat, hoarse, aware of their kindness, my deserved caste as odd recluse, phone a seldom-used landline. A low-pressure change heads our way. Yay! The cavalry.
The trough arrives, favouring my position, cooling me and galahs, but imperilling others. I play back the evacuation message, make calls. My son in a city far away tells me to get going to my sister’s in town. Now. Ravelled with decision-making: cats, donkey, documents, photographs, cherished journals; my heart brimming, I secure windows, doors, take short-term essentials, leave this place, so beloved, especially its fragrance when soft rain begins to fall.
Possums scoured juiced orange peels on my compost heaps, inverting them to resemble white bra cups, like an art installation, contrasting with the dark teeming below, and now, above. The empty clothesline sways, days of pegged socks’n’jocks, colour, all gone, gone, children grown. Where six pink and grey galahs perch, silent, feathers ruffled, I sit under their melaleuca watching the car disappear, a Beckett character waiting. For what? So much I love is under threat.
I can’t imagine starting again, beauty razed but for echoed voices, these trodden paths to the heart. Walking about in circles, brittle leaves, small branches, crunching underfoot, grevillea, bottlebrushes, bravely flying their colours in this demonic blast, I feel as helpless as a crushed bird. An eerie soundtrack as in a film by Werner Herzog or Terence Malick would be apt.
My neighbours return, relay that we have been advised by phone to leave. Reluctant, I assure them I shall, voice, meant to sound upbeat, hoarse, aware of their kindness, my deserved caste as odd recluse, phone a seldom-used landline. A low-pressure change heads our way. Yay! The cavalry.
The trough arrives, favouring my position, cooling me and galahs, but imperilling others. I play back the evacuation message, make calls. My son in a city far away tells me to get going to my sister’s in town. Now. Ravelled with decision-making: cats, donkey, documents, photographs, cherished journals; my heart brimming, I secure windows, doors, take short-term essentials, leave this place, so beloved, especially its fragrance when soft rain begins to fall.
Ian C Smith is a widely published poet who writes in the Gippsland Lakes region of Victoria, and on Flinders Island.