Poetry#17 – Jess of the Clearfell

Jess of the Clearfell

Eyebrows tangled in angry frown

angry mouth, furious hair

thin body, thin clothes

pierced navel, pierced heart

squatting on denuded forest floor

powdered dust coat calloused feet

wounded eyes confront, challenge

                        plastic obsessions, possessions
                        while ancient giants

                        chipped and pulped

                        become toilet paper.

Fearless spirit of the old-growth

battling the exterminators

eradicating

the mute, the unheard

invisible ecosystems

the wallaby, the red-tail cockatoo                 500 yr old karri felled 
                                                   and left
homeless

a debt owed                       

complacent lives provoked

opening eyes, opening minds

to a thing of beauty

once lost, gone forever.

                                                   Stump of C700 yr-old tree. 
                                                   49 people stand upon it.

Wattle Block – January 1999