Australia burns and Friday song day.
Greetings, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you. Regular readers may have noticed that I skipped my Friday song day last week. With Australia burning, I just didn’t have the heart for it. I feel much the same this week, but, you know, it’s like falling off a horse …. Read more
Australia burning — Dear Readers, one of my favourite poets and all round nice person, Frank Prem, is currently writing a series of poems on the bushfire crisis that is underway in Australia. Frank is the author of Devil In The Wind, a collection of poems about the personal accounts of those who experienced and survived the horrendous Black Saturday bushfires that swept across Victoria (Australia) in 2009. That book was published last year. Needless to say, I won’t be reading it until the smoke has cleared.
For those of you who may not know, Frank lives in an area that is currently sandwiched between two enormous out-of-control bushfires. This brings a poignancy and emotion to his poems that will touch any reader. These poems are laments for what is, what was, what could have been. Frank writes for all of us who are caught up in this situation. Check out his poems on his website at https://frankprem.wordpress.com/blog/ .
I want to share with you a couple of photos that my husband took in Namadgi National Park a couple of days before Christmas. Read more
Still here. Going strong.
Dear readers, the temperature is blessedly cool today in the national capital (Canberra, Australia) and the bushfire smoke has cleared somewhat. We expect the smoke to return this evening when the wind changes. In the meantime, the terrible gloom that descended on the city has lifted and people are in good spirits. So are the animals. A flock of silvereyes visited our garden. One was lucky to enough to find a small praying mantis but its best efforts to dispatch it were defeated. Read more
Australia burning —Brian from Bushboy’s World wants to see the last photo on your SD card. Here’s mine, taken at 6.30am this morning from my back window.
I wonder how anything could survive outside in that smoke. Read more
Australia burning — I wonder whether those thousands of people that are sheltering on isolated east coast beaches, overwhelmed by acrid smoke — in towns where supplies are running low and where some unprincipled grocers charge exorbitant amounts for a few basic supplies — are contemplating jumping on small, overcrowded boats and sailing across treacherous waters to New Zealand? I wonder whether these prospective boat people — call them climate refugees, if you will — might beg the New Zealand government grant them asylum and a new beginning? I wonder how New Zealanders might react to such requests? I wonder ….
I wonder how far-fetched this actually sounds?
December (Canberra summer) — Caught in transition.
I feel compelled to take photos, both of the mundane and the unusual, as if to bear witness that these places, things, people and creatures, once existed and that they mattered. Read more
When will this end? Getting nervous, but still here. The horror and the devastation continues.
The joke is on us all. Read more
Greetings, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.
I don’t know whether the bushfire smoke is getting to me, or whether I’m just going a bit batty, or maybe both. Either way, I sure don’t feel well. Depending on the way the wind is blowing, my True Love and I will nip outside for a breath of fetid air. On one of our brief walks, we saw a tiny colony of flying foxes (fruit bats) with what looked like several babies clinging to them. Flying foxes have been having a tough time of it over the last few years. They have been dying in their thousands from heat stress during increasingly frequent heatwaves. I can relate. I think I might drop off my perch too if I don’t get air-conditioning. Seriously though, it is a real problem. Read more
Sometimes it seems that I grew up in a golden era — at a time when world peace seemed possible, and Australians of all faiths lived together harmoniously. Religious wars were something that happened ‘somewhere else’. There was also no such thing as culture wars. We had a strong two-party system, one representing business, while the other was perceived as the workers’ champions. There was even an accord between business and labour. Fancy that! The way people voted was less about one’s religious affiliation or to which dioceses one belonged, it was predominantly about class. That is what it seemed like to me anyway. However, that has all changed. Read more
A little Aussie satirical poem because, well, life vapes and then you die. This is not the happiest poem so you may want to skip it.
It’s Christmas Time In the City
no joy no joy no
air no air no air none
kirribilli smokin’
white men jokin’
it’s Christmas time in the city
make haste to land of the smoke-free
blow smoke up ya
are we having fun yet?
not me not me not
happy mo-mo
no joy no joy no
air no air no air no
Christmas barbie in the city
Sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen. It happens when you’re starved of oxygen. I will resume my normal calm programming as soon as we can breathe again. Maybe in a few months time. Or maybe when we meet our Paris emission target through accounting loophole. Not happy mo-mo.
Regards.
Tracy
Australia. Perfect one day. Bushfires the next.
Reflections of An Untidy Mind 