Lynne Hosking, President Armidale NPA
The Pilliga
What is special for me ?
Sunrise, soft light, from atop Salt Cave fire tower
Vast vista of sage cypress, stretching to nudge
Warrumbungles, Nandewar Ranges and
Ukerbarley awake.
A surprise ! Up close, a pair of courting butterflies !
Noontime harsh light, drowsy heat, birds quiet
Sandstone caverns, animals asleep…
Myriad nocturnal tracks patterning
Rivers of sand and ephemeral creeks.
Sunset, glowing pink Dandry Gorge
Shadowy, sculptures emerge mysteriously.
With memories we walk in magic light
Amidst Gamilaraay vibrancy.
Midnight, floating cradled by friend
Pilliga healing bore baths, soothed.
Gazing up in wonderment at a dark emu
Shadowed within a starry Southern Cross.
10th August 2019
The Pilliga
What are my concerns?
Sunrise, fire tower view, will it still
Reveal Eric Roll’s Million Wild Acres,
Echo cries of Gomeroi hearts-breaking?
Are butterflies meeting and mating above
Forest canopy on towers and hilltops?
Noontime, cindered cypress droop
Ironbarks are a memory…
Lizard, bird, animal tracks fading
…Where are they sleeping?
Stygofauna and insect species gone
Before we’ve got to know them.
Sunset, see the gas field flares.
Day and night shadows gesticulating,
The forest fragmenting – new fences,
Roads, poisonous spills, gas wells,
And coal methane gas freely venting.
Midnight, Pilliga bore seeping, weeping…
Barely floating, vision blurred, the
Dark sky brightened-blighted
By an un-natural 24 hour glow.
Emu, up there …
… Is your head bowed in sorrow ?
3rd August 2020
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