During the Blue Mountains fires in Australia, December 2019
We read in the local Australian media that the air is toxic, and the pollution levels are dangerous to our health. We read about the microscopic dust and PM2.5 particles. But what are these particles?
They are the koalas caught in the burning tree canopies, too slow to escape. The few remaining native animal species that have been able to survive in our transformed environment.
The smell of the smoke is the one hundred species of eucalyptus trees awarded World Heritage for their outstanding diversity. Along with the living laboratory of Blue Mountains ecosystems formed across millennia. Thankfully the Wollemi pines that have avoided extinction for over 100 million years were saved from the flames
Our smoke-induced headaches are the 20,000-year-old rock art destroyed in the flames. The Aboriginal sacred sites and songlines of the Dharug, Darkinjung, Gundungurra, Tharawal, Wanaruah and Wiradjuri people.
Eastern Spinebill found dead in my garden during the fires. Image: Rosalie Chapple
The pink-red glow of the sunset is the burning peat of the upland swamps that formed over thousands of years, serving as sponges that hold precious water on top of the escarpments. It is the endangered wildlife that live in the swamps, the Blue Mountains water skink and the giant dragonfly.
The sick feeling in our stomachs is the burning of the few remaining pure-bred dingoes. It is the bower that the satin bowerbird built so he could dance for his females, surrounded by painstakingly curated blue objects.
The sting in our eyes is the eastern spinebill, tiny birds too vulnerable to survive the heat. Even the echidnas engulfed in flames as they hunkered in the ground with their fire-resistant spines.
Our tears are the moisture from the wings of the newly hatched cicadas that just emerged from their seven-year hibernation.
All of them burning, rising, floating, and settling in our lungs. Their lives have become part of ours more than ever before – we denied our connection and we can deny it no longer.
Rosalie Chapple, 24 December 2019
* Inspired by and adapted from Becca Rose Hall’s Fine particles of brilliant forests, burning, written during fires in British Columbia. Published by The Dark Mountain Project, Issue 15, 2019.