… geological time
collapses gently
as if we could follow the charts
of rising and
incomprehensibly vast
temperature, and know
the rivers melted long ago.
At some point in the past
you have to meet the future.
Our capacity to absorb
expanding timelines resolved
into the written record of all geology
and substrate fossilised
like the falling leaf you watched
turning
and turning, angling for purchase
on the wet oval ground
of Balfe Park.
(Address:
Wurundjeri Country
Brunswick East
Naarm, VIC
continent christened Australia
3057.)
Anticipating ones and zeros
(the origin of binaries – merci, Microsoft)
two instruments
in unison
played a solemn tune:
the low rumbling rhythm
of firetrucks in March
and the high note of the Pliocene
marbled and mottled and yearning, their music
discernible from space
(so they say).
But oh say
can you see
my house from up there?
Turtle Island just an island
of real-time satellite imaging.
Metallic dishes tracking smoke
across the Sino-Russian border
where two fire regimes meet
and make up.
The peat fog
of Indonesia convalescing
resumes toward Malaysia
via Singaporean detour
where eight million lightning strikes
occur daily. Ecological aberration
like recurring product placement –
You are now sailing Spaceship Earth.
Some of us are preserved
in the geological record,
the heat of lightning
collapsing grains of sand
into skeletal tubes.
Still – some planets burn longer
soothed by timelines
into which antelope
and koala were led.
Warp-speed reproductions
playing hide-and-seek,
learning not to yield
to atavism,
the stubborn temptation
toward death’s slow feed
because who would win?
Not us – this planet has more practice
←insert line break
(hundreds of millions of years, give or take).
Plants and animals harnessing
the mechanics of flames,
a reproductive potential
decipherable in the landscape.
So we have learned to live with it:
the Michelin-starred restaurant
its twenty different heats
for haute cuisine.
Flicker of flame – ignition of light
coolly prompting fire –
fresh arrivals –
and the yielding
of readymade recipes
for fine soufflé.
Overland’s Friday Features project is supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.
