Published in Overland Issue 207 Winter 2012 Uncategorized Step by Step Patrick Jones when population S swell and get sucked into cities we rely on resources Trucked from somewhere else and indoing so forf Eit the ecological intelligence that our uns Pecialised ancestors kept so close and a S a result of this gradual loss and separation we habi Tually war and rationalise its genocide and w E leave our food production to faceless corporations – shareholder science and its Persistent ecocide So if we’re to survive industrial civilisation i Ts warming planet peak oil and ‘hyper-separation’1 w E have but a rudimentary set of laws to follow free access to the sun soil Plants and their cloudy irrigation but perhap S it’s still too early to speak again so simply wi Th oil and other fossils we have the illusion of great complexity and with urban E prejudices and centralised philosophies Primaries of existence remain relegated to the indigenous and the peasantry our intran Sigence to rapid change may be The deathnail in the coffin of the suburban bourgeoisie which may in turn n Ecessitate composting private property reruralising Populations from car parks to food forestry and becau Se we can no longer say that growth and ascent capi Talisation of the arts or technological advent will sustain and r Etain populations hell bent on ignoring the Projections of climate chaos and energy descent we’ll eat the weed S and become radical homemakers prac Tice wild fermentation and Aboriginal patterns of experience w E’ll shift the central ideology from waste back to ecology and shunt the industrial military com Plex through our everyday activity So we won’t support supermarkets and fossil energy companies ins Tead expand local food systems and functional diversity and w E will not fly and drive the planet into more aggregating violence rather relocalise our Produce our arts and our science and we’ll not grow wealth becau Se we know it only grows pollution we’ll become ins Tead unclocked – calibrated to our bioregion and w E’ll not slump back to religious agricultural repression we’ll resist the disembodiment of Past generations we’ll learn to live again without pla Stic cards and life insurance we’ll ea T ferns yams and fungi when they’re abundant not over harvest and w E’ll grow food in compost soil but not become reliant on fixed settlements and their tra Ppings in an age of extreme climate what i S now apparent is no longer a problem that needs a solution bu T a predicament requiring responses to anthropogenic pollution b Ecause the way in which we live is ultra-fanatical negation – the relationshi P between our economics and biospheric degradation every Single law every governmental system is se T up to serve centres of veiled violence and cruel abstractions to put solar pan Els on our roofs and carry on as usual is Profound stubbornness to crises and arrogance to frugal what is now required is whole Systems insurrection s Tarting with each sporulating home not awaiting confirmation from h Erbicidal governments that will only slow us down nothing can move more ra Pidly than weeds on disturbed ground to be connected to the grid S of peaking industrialisation including every Type of labour from childcare to construction is to b E vulnerable to collapse to rising costs and tides – resilience is found in untamed com Pany not in Cartesian lies ye S it’s still a time of choice of mediated fantasy a Tipping point of wealth a last desperate grab at fancy w E’ve deforested the landbase and vacuumed up the sea Plumed a thousand years of oil in one corrupted century So the payback’s on our doorstep and the on-effects are looming some will pray for Techno-fix others apocalyptic-dooming but th Ese two hopeful fictions are not really meant to Prepare us for an era of climate chaos and energy descent and tho Se who will survive and carry on our species will reengage wi Th airborne yeasts bacteria and forest faeces and grow again from wild syst Ems our relationship to earth we cannot box u P or burn our dead and expect to freely birth and while there i S good warmth and nominal moisture in the soil we’ll ea T spontaneous plant life and replace totalising oil with Ecological functioning – step by step – which simply means we regain auto Poesis – we harvest hunt and glean [1] Val Plumwood, Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reason, Routledge, London and New York, 2002, p. 52 Patrick Jones Patrick Jones is equal runner-up in the 2011 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets. More by Patrick Jones Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays First published in Overland Issue 228 31 March 2023 Poetry Poetry | Dog walking in the desert Leni Shilton Mparntwe | Alice Springs claypans Each time you walk take a bag for the rubbish, for the weeds. Stride out then confuse the dog as you stop over and over, like you are picking at treasure. You dig with the heel of your boot at the sea of three-corner-jack prickles and remind yourself next time to bring gloves. First published in Overland Issue 228 30 March 202331 March 2023 Culture RollerCoaster Tycoon and the art of niche hobbies Zac Picker As a writer, I spend too much time awake at night worrying about building an audience for my work. And yet, I spend even more time awake at night, planning my next RollerCoaster Tycoon park in my head, for an audience of the hundred-or-so RCT parkmakers I care about the most.
