Through all the experience of eras,
oh-so-so-long before the Eden-gardening
aborigines out-of-Africa, hastening
and high tailing it through many regions,
ran out of land somewhere off India,
from Timor to Kimberley finally
hurtled here on giant rafts,
swept east and west, meeting
in the Nullarbor
- all that is the bat
of a monitor-lizards eye, but
you must pull the lever further back,
jolt time-machine the same again,
as before goannas crawled in
swam or clung -
these phoenix trees
evolved in fire, ran resinated flame
teased the lightning's primal game
hardcore pyro.
The planet is electric;
lightning its runnel:
where it struck the earth
the Greeks might build a temple
to appease, but these trees
drop kindling in advance
to maximize their chance,
long strips of resined bark
bitty twigs, whole limbs,
cracking brittle off, and the leaves,
the lances of the dried leaves,
olive chlorophyll drained away,
always a trickle, a spin down,
a settle, a pattern where Random
may just hold the brush -
that part's left to her.
......................
https://phys.org/news/2018-08-aboriginal-people-inaustralia.html
pic of painting by Peter Gardener, Briagolong Gippsland artist. It hangs in Sale Art Gallery, The Port
