Bushfire Season

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Drought

Summer's Early Grip Continues - 21.October.2002

It should have rained... its the end of the October Long Weekend and it hasn't rained... its Tuesday and it did not rain... it always rains... Never plan anything which requires sun on October long weekend because it will be rained out all weekend... but the clouds merely rumbled once and vanished... and its unbearably hot here... its only October... not yet December... and its already hot... the bushfires, well the season's already started, its going to be a bad one, I wasn't here last year when they ripped through, a bad year... they're only meant to happen every 5 or 6 years, a really bad year where the sun turns red and the wind carries burnt leaves and the sky turns ghastly shades of death... I remember the blood suns well, not bright white or yellow light that glares and hurts the eyes, but a deep deep well of red, blood red and the heat makes it shimmer and melt, the sky melting blood down on us... its going to be another year like that, and the bored mindless school kids shall help light the fires, and everyone will curse them when its hard enough as it is when nature's torch is blazing for a fight anyway, and Johnny shouldn't have been so wrapt up in kicking out refugees and spending money left and right in America's wake against 'terrorism'... the farms they've been in drought throughout most of the year, and summers about to commence, we're already having to import food, our exports are dropping... there's no honey left either, an australian honey industry that exports has suddenly had to import, no one's been noticing until now, because the press keeps on about America's war and refugees, and our economy's already being suffering without having to add the cost of food and water... its been the worst droughts since about 1920...

...and I hate the heat... it sucks what little is left in me out, languishing complete, the heat pounds through you, and you struggle for breath against it... Water restrictions will be in place soon too... Gosfords been on them for a year, it seems odd that we aren't already on them... but perhaps they want to help delay the pain...

so now I must wait for the sun to turn red and hope to get through this summer in one piece, I feel such an ominous presence upon me that I'm not sure if I will... I am already languishing, and my thoughts shall become as ashes

Southerly Change - 21.October.2002

I hadn’t realised until later, when I’d come home, that it had been a bad day for bushfires, I suppose I must have felt it in the air when I’d written that last entry… today its been cool, the southerly breeze has remained with us all day though still no rain, but today I do not mind...

For the moment though I was heading into town, hot and languishing, perhaps my thoughts which I now transcribe here, perhaps they themselves follow the change, the soft shift of the wind to the cool southerly change…

She’d asked me weeks ago if I loved the way the heat wrapped itself around you like a lover, an intoxicating embrace that poured through every sensation of your being. I was hesitant, I hated the heat, had not noticed it as a lover, an intoxicating passion, yet the way she talked, I promised myself to try and notice this lover when summer arrived, a steamy dangerous love affair with that whom I had abhorred…

Train monologue…

My back pressed against the wall of the train, rocking back and forth in a lazy lilt along the tracks, it shudders and jarrs when I try to write, we almost screech to a halt as we reach the station, a gentle lazy breath of warm air trickles through the doors; someones sat on the other side directly in my line of vision, sunnies, bright backpack and grey striped socks on the seat jarring against the soliloquy I felt before, the muttering of practising his mandarin, learning phrases disturbs the quiet of the trains rumblings, I hope he gets off soon; perhaps I should draw him, he might go away then… Instead another obstruction, dusted down in plaster and browned hairy skin and torn jeans has also joined the first obstruction… I draw them anyway, well at least part of them… the chatterers have arrived too, further down, a babble of voices quite intrusive, I mainly drew obstruction two’s backpack, dark brown with white marks, a well worn handle of a workmen’s tool protruding out from a corner, some battered notebooks in the front pocket, I imagine the tool to be a chisel, it feels as though it should be a chisel, a large one maybe, perhaps it might otherwise be a paint stripper… Shifting my back against the wall I return to thinking of the train as a building; It has four walls in each carriage, doors, windows, two storeys with connecting stairs, surely it qualifies then as a building, I suppose a car is a building too, only it doesn’t seem like one, it’s a little too small, more like a cramped room than a building, a train feels like a building, you walk around in it, you sit in it, stand in it, the only thing unusual about it is that it moves from one location to another, but you barely notice that, well I don’t at the moment… Obstruction One looked at me uncertainly, I stared back as I continued to write, he’s getting edgy and now he stands and moves out of our carriage, I almost spoil it with a laugh, Obstruction Two I think has noticed me writing or drawing as I look at him, but he avoids looking at me and stares out the window, but solace is unavoidable right now anyway… some other fat guy in black and white tries to turn the seat infront of me round to expose me and wall himself in instead, I move it back, after all I was here first, people always still try to do that though, its still been peaceful though, I haven’t heard any mobiles go off or anything, and the babblers are quieter now that one or two have got off and the trains returning to its lilting along the tracks, Obstruction Two isn’ts as bad as Obstruction One was, and I might just close my eyes a little now… And a mobile phone goes off before I’ve even had the chance to move my eyelids, it’s a message for Obstruction Two, I watch him reply, I’ll still try and find peace - attempt two at closing my eyes and drifting away… I’m most aware of the guttering on the roof shaking and rattling, buildings are not meant to travel I suppose, and the jarring thud of something heavy like a glass paperweight rolling down the isle suddenly sends my eyes flying open - and I close them again… how come the guttering only seems to make such a noise when I shut my eyes… my back begins to throb badly now, but I’m almost there, next station and I change trains to circular quay… I hadn’t noticed quite how prominent Obstruction Two’s adam’s apple is until now… and time is soft and still…

A wander through the rocks, under the harbour bridge pylons and along the harbour foreshore

I’m wandering under the bridge now, and its so wonderful, the rumble overhead, muted echoes of some other world, a field of grass beneath foot, you can look one way out to the roofs of a few buildings, the harbour, the opera house, and on the other side, one row of neat brown sandstone terraces, shades of caramel on the buildings on both sides, all is in harmony with each other, up above, just below the underbelly walk a line of bridge climbers, suspended against a clear blue sky, I made the right decision to come up here before the lecture and there’s a cool breeze blowing… The figs ahead around the corner are lit with the afternoon light, that glowing white light that seems to pure and heavenly… A girl up ahead sits perched on the end of a canon looking very content… I wish I could sit there too… Everyone around me seems to have a camera and for once in my life I am content with my paper and pen, and the only thing bothering me right now is the fly that’s trying to get my attention… But I’ve found something very interesting, a tiny spot, uncomfortable to sit and write, but anyway, a tiny semicircle of view where the harbour slinks up against a shore, rather than a wall, there is a layer of slated rocks, old sandstone blocks as tiles, I think theres a wall further up, but the sea doesn’t reach there, instead it slinks up and down naturally, a little sand amongst the sandstone blocks. It’s also low tide though, black shelled limpets cling to the base of a support pillar for the hotel restaurant above, but oh do I love it, a caved shore for our ocean to rest in and out against… as I get up and walk away I notice that the tiles end and a small expanse of dark sand beach lies behind it before the wall is enforced… If I ever want to runaway I wish to sleep under there, if I ever want to commit suicide I want to drown in our harbour, to climb down one of the ladders along the dock and just sink…

Ominous Winds - 4.December.2002

For those who like subtle hints of portents I've had an afternoon full of them. The phone rang about twice before it stopped ringing. The wind has been rattling at the windows and the awning - a hot stifling wind. There have been strange cracks, and bangs, and whining sorts of shrieks occasaionlly softly penetrating the air around. At one point I thought there might be an intruder trying to get in. Sirens on the horizon. The lights have been flicking on and off, the radio flicking on and off with the lights.

Opening the blind to put the awning up before it breaks I see a cloud on the horizon. I think it's a low lying storm cloud. I realise a little later it's not, but a huge plume of billowing smoke, there's a bushfire relatively nearby here, there are about 20 more around the state, our huge billow of smoke cloud is not coming from one of the biggest ones... I should have taken a digital photo when there was a good view of it when we drove down for icecreams, there won't be a change in conditions for another 36 hours...

The signs continue. Lots more large twigs or small branches clunking against things, falling and hitting things. Our cactus got blown over in the hot winds. There's been a spate of sirens just exploding on the horizon. A helicopter churning over above heading towards the plume which is being tinged yellow, orange, pink not quite red yet with the setting sun... oh and I forgot to mention, today, or more precisely about to happen in 20 minutes or so, there is going to be a total solar eclipse, best viewed in South Australia so we won't be able to see it as the sun's just set in our part of Aus, but anyway I don't have any sunnies suitable to try and look at it with... they talked a bit about it on the news, and showed the partial eclipse, I like the idea of it, where the sun becomes the crescent moon, a full moon cycle in the space of a short time... and apparently there's something of a rushing shadow that will swoop over everyone in its path... maybe in 10 years time when it returns to Aus I'll be able to go and see it...

Decided to stay up and watch the late night movie, it wasn't like I was going to sleep much in the heat... I enjoyed it thoroughly, The Captain's Daughter I think it was called... it was set in Russia....

This is going to be the worst summer we've ever had... I've said it before too, and its shaping up to do just that... and last year was supposed to be a bad one, bad ones are only meant to happen every 6-9 years... but two in a row, and this no doubt will be the worst... we had two small thunderstorms last week, but they haven't helped, not enough in them to help soften all this dry dead scrub everywhere... from some earlier bushfires we were driving past the spot where they had been... and there's a bit of green grass there, a little bit of green grass on the edge of the burnt out area where the firefighters hoses had given it some water, all around it is so dry, so dry, so much fuel, so many fires, so many stupid people who throw cigarette butts out their car windows and start a massive bushfire, so many even stupider bored people who like to light fires...

There's so much of an ill wind blowing that I'd shiver if it wasn't so hot...

Maelstrom - 20.January.2003

See these flames, a powerful wall of fire
It sweeps down and through, racing through
Too fast it roars along to consume everything
But lays a blanket of grey and black upon the earth
There are trees that it leaves, with one side burnt and one side not
A leaf blown miles on hot westerly winds, perfectly intact but burnt black
At great leagues you feel it, in the heat of the day that sucks life away
The sun does bleed, an orange or red boiling sphere
And the winds whip it onwards, onwards still till it might finally fall exhausted to ash
Yet this Maelstrom is ours, our lands fierce lover and destroyer

This weekend, fires ripped through the Australian Capital Territory, destroying homes in some of Canberra's southern suburbs. I'd been in Canberra the weekend before, driving down to see an exhibition at the art gallery, as we approached we could see ash clouds on the horizon, four randomly arrayed plumes which curved in an arc behind one of the mountain ranges. On the news on my radio I'd heard that Mount Kosciuszko was stuggling with a fire that was burning through areas that do not normally burn, that have not seen fire through them for hundreds of years. By midweek it was relatively quiet, there was a mention that the fires near Canberra were worsening as they were in inaccessible areas to fight and one national park area had been given up as lost. This weekend on Saturday things turned for the worse, Saturday afternoon in Canberra the sky turned to night by the thick black ash blanketing the city. In Sydney the sky was a sort of mid grey ash blanket cover, not from the wind pushing it towards us, but merely the appearance of what lay some four hours drive distance from our horizon. Mount Kosciuszko fires are still burning through the snowy mountains, some of the alpine grasslands have also burnt and they never burn, the fires are starting towards the ski resorts of Thredbo now. In the after affects of all this what happens next... I can only hope that John Howard forgets about pandering to America for awhile with Iraq war talk and thinks about fixing things that are going to be troublesome... I can't find the related website address for the SMH article that talks about the very serious pollution problems Canberra will now face, destroyed in the fires other than all the houses was Mount Stromlo observatory, the RSPCA shelter ((I had heard all the animals were being evacuated so they are all alive just homeless, no idea where they took them all)) and the Water Treatment plant. The last is particularly worrying in the immediate future, people in Canberra have already been asked not to use their sinks, drains, showers, toilets etc. Yet damage will already be done as the sewarge water treatment plant was destroyed in the fires and already the untreated sewage from it is flowing down to one of the tributary rivers that flows into the ACT's main water supply. I have no idea what they are trying to do to stop it.
Another long term concern would be Mount Stromlo observatory, this was a really important thing for Australia in the field of Science, and many of our hopes are going to be crushed with it. I hope Howard finds some wisdom enough to put his energies not in kicking out refugees onto pacific islands but in re-establishing this to its former glory and then even more beyond that...

The Quiet Afternoon After - 21.January.2003

The sun a creamy bright orange,
Softened beneath the haze of heat.
The sky a blanket of slightly dusty white.
There's an eerie glow to the green of the trees,
The pigeons strutting in line along the platform.
The world in tones of grey, green and brown,
Only briefly flecked with black, red or yellow.
The brown and grey of the tracks running alongside,
Dark brown brick houses and brown green shrubs,
Even the river we cross is a pale ashy grey.
There seems to be no longer any blue.
Just once a few dark blue station benches,
But even these say there still isn't any blue.
No blue, just a bright grey uncertaintity

addendum April 2005. I don't know really know whats happened with Canberra now, well there was a bit about the rebuilding, don't know what happened with the observatory, I should try to find out more to see if they have reinvested in that beautiful historical building with its bold future plans. The water shortages never left, we are now on permanent water shortages, the fires and the intensity may have been a bit duller in the following years but the drought has not abatted. Perhaps though one of the most poignant images in my mind is reflecting on the last piece 'the quiet afternoon after' where "There seems to be no longer any blue. / Just once a few dark blue station benches, But even these say there still isn't any blue, / No blue, just a bright grey uncertaintity." because if there is one thing for certain is that Australia is all about its 'blue' the blue skies the blue ocean, we are obsessed with blue, surrounded by blue, a photographer recently commented how travelling around Australia it became quite disconcerting and discomforting to have day in day out these perfect unmarred blue skies. To be without them, to have a scene that is 'unblue' in turn is entirely discomforting and eerie.