After Bushfire

By Julie Holland

Bushfire came through 
Evil as devil may be
No thing, nor thought, spared
Just a trail of black
Shapes rising to ether
To sapphire sky, to smoke and sour
Young and tender wind, a calling to
Green, that pulls life from ash

Look at that Dad, said the child
A rescue helicopter flies over
Winter sun burn, sea wind chills blistering back
Motorbikes arrive, fit in, colourful jackets keep out the nip
An Indian couple. He in a turban 
She in a sari, queue for chips frying, tinged with sea, salt, skin
A dog barks, pulling at lead as seagulls fight for carbs
Gentle ice cream days snapped to death

Spill out vulnerability underfoot, King Neptune’s treasure
Delicate curly shells, modern ammonites to trample 
Dried seaweed poppers, kids fingering nature’s bubble-wrap 
Whilst fractured cuttlefish bone cuts, injuring, injured 
Cracking over shiny, sandy, frothy spittle 
Games over dunes, erode, fond memory unprotected 
Held together with brush and tangle and compassion
Man alongside dog and bird and snake, a tracker’s fathom

The croak of frog, rustle of wing and feather, of crickets 
A bird crying. I see no bird 
Earth smells nutty, with ants making trials to follow, rustling desiccated leaf 
Blackened stump from fire, charcoal in lump 
Above rise skeleton gums, black-burned below sight 
Still, a beauty, a gentle friend to fresh grasses struggling through the dry 
Carnaby Cockatoo call to me. To each other. To their God. To heavens
And the ants continue. Never stop nor tire. Stalwart. Brainless. Maybe? 
Why else drag that leaf, a shroud, their cross

Sand grit scuffs to shape
Geometric Adidas and Nike, benevolent zig and zag
Imprinting a Picasso path to follow 
I hear the call of wilderness. Can you hear?
The tick tick of something, a life, somewhere off
Shadows rise and fall, wetlands, that weave
As generous sun kindly crimsons
Crisping skin, bone, to desert, to pain

Further out frogs won’t stop, scum, over water marks tracks, from birds, fowl
Reeds sharpened to spears, hiding 
Water snakes so poisonous they glow in the dark 
I read that in Winton or Attenborough? They know, people like them 
Cold touches my wrist. I jump at my designer zipper 
Why you here, on the edge of irreligious suburbia. Go home
You cannot know it. No one knows it, but mother Earth 
She thrives despite you. Stronger than you. Them 
She alone waits for your foolish last words. For peace

And all to a backdrop of turquoise khaki clumps 
Blackness on sea, seaweed floating in fragility
And stick figure surfers. Easy to cut. Football heads bobbing on green ribbons in salt haze 
Dark shadows, marking mystery, wrecks the breakers with perpetual sound 
Madness, manic, mayhem. Boiling into a crash 
Waves plunder the shore. Roaring the delicate sand, rendering tumbling foam
Then calm, smoothly rippled, to the lacy expanse
Hope sympathetic on cinder toffee strand
Forever happens, when you look away.

Commended in the 2022 Ethel Webb Bundell Literary Awards, Julie Holland lives and writes in Western Australia. She studied Visual Arts, received an MA, exhibited in many exhibitions, but her passion remains the written word.