It's essential 'corridor' (and all) bushland is saved in Perth, a city whose remaining green and 'natural' spaces are being eaten by development. Here's a petition people long committed to the saving of the Lemnos Street bushland have created. And here's a 'save the place' poem:
Lemnos Street Bushland
Exemplar of life, linkage, corridor
to hold the underpinnings of all aliveness —
the banksia leaves serrate the breeze
channelling through, honeyeaters
decrypting lanterns far more
illuminating than LEDs.
If deleted, the fill-in reduces breath
and sight, limits every exchange
we make within and beyond the self.
Let live so you — we — live. Skink
in sunlight is rapture. And listen
to the ensemble of leaves, stalks, branches!
We come down from the wheatbelt
every week to take our son to a language
class just down the road from Lemnos Street —
I say, They’re going to delete all that bush,
it’s so easy for them to do. Each week we watch.
A fortnight ago, heading down, we saw three
Carnaby’s cockatoos dead on the highway —
hit by a truck, then no doubt a questioning
bird, lost, was hit searching for flight. Traffic
rolls on. Why do we learn to speak?
The answers come quick, in what
is learnt, what has been taught.
React. Distress. Recover. Forget?
Exemplar of life, linkage, corridor
to hold the underpinnings of all aliveness —
let live so you —we — live. Cockatoo
in sunlight is rapture. And listen
to the ensemble of birds! And listen
to banksias reach further than light.
John Kinsella
