22. Nature [100 poems challenge]

22.          Nature

At first
All I see is
The grey ash,
Its fine powder dark and dusty
Below the charred black bark
Of once proud eucalypts
Now naked,
Leaves vanished
In a furious inferno,
A howling firestorm
Of hungry flames
And swirling embers;
Consuming, capricious, and catastrophic.

Grey ash,
And scarred stumps,
Black and grey,
Charred and cindered;
Grey ash,
Dusty and dead.

But then—
Luminous against the grey—
A tiny, impossible green;
Tentative yet defiant,
Sign of life.

12 May 2013

Comments: There were big bushfires in Tasmania this year, strongly reminiscent of the devastating and tragic fires in Victoria in 2009. I also have memories of the block of land I used to have at Snug which was burnt out in 1994. I was down there on the day of the fire, with the fire front still out of sight. Just as I finished removing equipment from the shed and was driving off, airborne embers started a spot fire in the middle of the block, and I knew it would be unstoppable. The next day, when I returned with the fire out, most of the bush was burnt and black, and ash was all that remained of the undergrowth where the fire had been. It was fascinating watching the miracle of regrowth in the following days and weeks and months.

Themes to come: 23. Cat; 24. No Time; 25. Trouble Lurking; 26. Tears; 27. Foreign

Explanation about the 100 poems challenge here.