1 JUNE 2011
On the Devastating Fallout of the War Against Climate Waged by Humans Around the Earth as Witnessed in the Chittering Valley
JOHN KINSELLA
- for Cate Blanchett
In a dry place, the dry out of reason
and testing all cases of precedent
should pull us up short, drop jaws,
have us staggering bewildered in dis-
belief, or better still standing up
and taking notice, quick action.
Whole valleys whole hills entire regions
of dead trees. It seems the scale
cannot be registered, the weight
of foliage emptied of moisture.
And the veins of dry have bled
into city streets where old trees
die and shower passers-by, autumn
leaves of the deciduous show-ponies
fall one last time, and evergreens
too let down their leaves. They'll
never perform this trick again.
Not sure what to do, the passers-by
rustle the leaves, kick them aside.
In this greedy State of Entrepreneurs,
dead surface means living rock to hack away,
flesh to cut from the bone, anatomy
jokes in medical school, desensitising
as 'survival': this body we share,
these organs, these evasive 'souls':
they familiarise then over-familiarise,
under writing death to pleasure
and wealth. But tree-life is their
life also. Blood, largely water,
is their sap. Soon, they will search
out sap donors. Healthy trees
will be harvested for their organs.
Trees will return to the top of the tree
of life. They will re-become archetypes.
And the Chittering Valley, easy
on the eye angst-soother tour
locus and lifestyle absolver,
convenient stone from the city
(bauxite miners are trying
to move in), for food dabblers
and wine-imbibers, orchard lovers
and weekend retreaters: all in
the crinkling shade of dead leaves,
shining under the sky's bright silver
lining, the domed overhead we build.
So, we forget the names of trees
outside nurseries, and leaves
are but pages we remember on.
John Kinsella
I like it.
ReplyDeleteNothing is that dry here, but still, the deforestation thing is happening all around.