Home » Poems » Kevin Fairbrother » Scarred and Blackened

Notes About The Poem

Like many places around the world, Tasmania has had one of it's hotest summers on record and with very low rainfall and a build of on ground fuel, fires were just waiting to happen and happen they did in our pristine South West. Many species of fauna will never recover.

Scarred and Blackened

Scarred and Blackened

In Tasmania’s rugged but scenic South West
Lies an ancient land of pristine wilderness
Protected by a World Heritage Listing
An eco-system a thousand years nesting

A land of Aboriginal spiritual dreamtime
Where rare native flora survives, like Pencil Pine
And fauna abound on the Button Grass plains
With rugged mountain ranges never tamed

Hunter Gatherers burned to reduce the fuel load
The protectors now heading down the wrong road 
By letting the fuel build to immense dimensions
A massive fire just waiting to turn the land ashen

The spirit of storm clouds gathers up high
For the rangers this is pleasing to the eye 
But alas, this building spiral of cloud is dry
Just building thunder heads in the sky

The inner circle of the clouds one big mass
Intermingle, then with violence they clash
Spewing bolts of lightning to the ground
But not a drop of precious rain to be found

A searing bolt of lightning grounds
Amid the drought-stricken pencil pines
An explosion of sparks, then flames
A fire is born the lightening to blame

Spreading quickly with the brisk westerly winds
The fire races through the dry Button grass plains
A massive cloud of smoke drifts east
Alerting the protectors to this massive beast

The call goes out for fire fighters and water bombers
As the black smoke causes concern to near-by loggers
For the fire now a catastrophic inferno
Consuming the wilderness like no tomorrow

The water bombers and man-power useless
Against this cataclysm of wild fire that has unleashed
Thousands of acres of pristine wilderness
Now blackened and scared, a nothingness 

For weeks it burned, some 100,000 acres
Now tamed by remote area fire-fighters
But the scars from the fire yet to discover
A landscape that will take years to recover

Global warming, to blame many think
As this South-West area was always wet
Many years of below average rainfall
Perhaps Mother-Nature having her revenge

earthmountainsnaturephilosophyrainfree verse

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Suzanne Delaney

May 3, 2019 at 4:51 AM

Hi Kevin: I know exactly what you are saying. The environmentalists have it all wrong now, not allowing trickle burns under the right conditions. They will not listen to wisdom though. A poem for my FAV’s list. Have a wonderful day and have a ride for me. I need it. Love, SuZ

Kevin Fairbrother

May 6, 2019 at 2:19 AM

Thanks Suzanne, I understand where you are coming from. I actually did go for a ride, although short, gathering some sheep in the high country. Cheers, Kev.