After the fires, January 2020

After the Fires, January 2020

Grey tree fringes on the silent hill-corpse
sprout from the pelt of fire-slaughtered slopes.
Once green – grasses, bushes, trees
teeming with power and life
the rustle of echidnas, lyrebirds, skinks.
Now silent, the brittle charcoaled limbs 
the wombat burrows of burnt flesh 
 
singed fur
bones
feathers
beaks.
I recall the agony through aching eyes
of black carcasses plunged from burning sky.
 
Now, dense undergrowth over hill contours consumed 
so bright rocks show through burnt soil skin
above, a lone black cockatoo squeals,
 
Gone
 
Gone
 
Gone.



 
(Published 34 to 37 Degrees South, SCWC Digital Poetry Anthology, December, 2023)