Black Cockatoos are Starving

Over the last couple of weeks we've been noticing a dramatic shift in the usual flight patterns of white-tailed black cockatoos over the valley. These magnificent, endangered birds are known as Ngolyenok in Noongar, and as Carnaby's in settler-speak. Sometimes we see 'Baudin's' as well, but usually on the other side of the river to the south-west. I say flight patterns 'over' the valley because, with rare exceptions, this has been the case for all the Sept/Oct periods (from the end of Djilba to the beginning of Kambarang) we've been here across fifteen years. 

Usually it's a migratory flight from north of here, with occasional pauses/perching before moving on to nesting hollows in wandoos at various points around the region (frequently bulldozed or cut down... it's an ongoing struggle to preserve nesting trees), or onward to the coastal plain to feed on banksia seeds. But this year is dramatically different — the 'wee-oo/wee-oo' calls have become a string of presence rather than snippets of audio. They have flown over, arced back, and hung around. Wing to wing, shadow by shadow, they are low overhead in cycles. 

We wondered if they were making use of flooded gum hollows down at the base of the valley for nesting — these flooded gums were largely destroyed years ago by a devastating 'controlled burn' that got out of hand and ignited dead leaves in forks and took out hundreds-of-years-old trees. But some remain basically intact, and others have grown back from the base of what remains of trunks (essentially chimneys). 

We are hearing the cockatoos constantly, and they are looping overhead throughout the day as they search for food. They are using York gums here as roosts (unusual), and astonishingly have started feeding on wild oats from the ground! I've also noticed on neighbouring 'properties' (what a word!) that they are foraging on animal fodder/feed in paddocks. 

I was quite literally writing a poem about this earlier today, when Tracy sent me an article by Emma Young and quoting botanist Kingsley Dixon about the paucity of food on the coastal plain for cockatoos visiting Boorloo/Perth due to the heat-stressed banksias not seeding as usual (late rains were another complicating factor) — further consequences of human-induced climate change. Everything suffers. To think that Chalice mining would wipe out cockatoo habitat to mine 'green metals' at Julimar (nearby)!— the contradictions are legion. 

As cockatoos starve, they search for alternative food sources, but this is an act of desperation. Unless we stop the war on nature (and on human life itself) in all its forms, we consign species after species to death. We simply don't have that right, and need to act on what we observe. A life of recording change brought about by human rapacity (and indifference) in poem after poem is confronting even for me. And the poem here speaks about the work necessary for all of us, myself included.

Ngolyenok —White-tailed Black Cockatoos — Have Become Part of My Quotidian

 

The feeding honk of cockatoos

that could be ‘contentment’ or pragmatism

is reworking my brain’s storage facilities,

 

multiplying in memory beyond the  2.5 petabytes

the Scientific American claims as capacity,

opening new pathways into non-neural tissue.

 

My hands and feet as repositories, to do the work.

Where for fifteen years they have passed over

at this time of year, cockatoos are demi-resident

 

and claiming something deeper, or opening

new possibilities given the impacts on their

habitat. Now I hear (more memory

 

will be required) that banksia woodlands

down on the coastal plain have failed to seed,

and these honking grazing cockatoos

 

are desperately feeding on wild oats

that grow outside the spray zones. I will

delay grass cutting a little longer

 

so they can augment their memories

with new possibilities, new scenes.

Then maybe the banksia will rise again,

restore memory to its optimal setting.

 

 

            John Kinsella

The Tree Killers

I was preparing to post the poem below which is about the pathology of those who kill trees to improve their views, or because they dislike the trees shedding leaves, or because trees cast shade over their gardens, or because trees 'harbour' birds that wake them, or because possums inhabit the hollows, or because they wish to 'develop' an area, or because they feel a neighbour is encroaching (via a tree) on their 'rights, and so on. This is a global disease, but has very particular inflections in Australia where it is not uncommon to hear literal hatred expressed towards tree life. The expression 'tree huggers' is mainstream and used pejoratively on bumper stickers. 

In this colonial/neo-colonial nation, the tree too often represents something to be overcome, to be defeated as part of the 'pastoral' control of space. Ancient trees are especially vulnerable, and today another grotesque case of tree murder is being discussed, with 'state officials' by their own admission having a hand in it (and tree drs and pseudo-arborists, 'pruners' and 'loppers') — an 800-year-old peppermint tree. 

This should be scrutinised and critiqued on a global scale, and is further evidence of the abuse of country that underwrites the colonial control still so dominant in Australia. This should never be able to happen, but it happens frequently. Too much of it locates around leisure and providing 'access to nature' — how many carparks, trails through forests, and so on are decimated in the name of tourism and entertainment? It's remorseless. 

Though there is the obvious large-scale bush clearing and destruction of forest around the country through logging (even where there's a cessation of old-growth logging, miners still make massive inroads... e.g. bauxite industry in WA's southwest jarrah forests), mining, housing developments degradation of forest by leisure activities, much tree killing is done 'privately' and secretively. 

In the last decade we've seen 400-year-old jarrah trees killed in the Challar Forest near Walpole and also the famous Gelorup Jarrah (300-400 years old) was 'mysteriously' felled during the horror discussions about the route of the Bunbury/Gelorup bypass (we witnessed the extent of this destruction a couple of weeks ago).  Among others! 

This poem focusses on the classic drill at the base and poison technique, much favoured by urban tree haters and also by rural retrogrades (sometimes arguing 'fire safety' as a trigger expression if they are caught... or some other such specious go-to...).  I was appalled to find that there's actually a Quora that discusses how to secretly kill 'unwanted' neighbour's trees, outlining herbiciding to 'girdling' (ring-barking... a favourite colonial-settler land-clearing technique, absorbed into the urban as part of the furtive neo-colonialism of Australian cities). People fuse their pathologies of tree-hate (and all it implies) into communities built on distance and anonymity. The world is killed anonymously.

To hate trees in this way is to hate the very essence and core of being. Without trees, the biosphere will be finished. The aim to control, confine and limit tree-life is part of a pathology of colonial control that merges with a desire for a legacy 'built' out of pioneering (as verb) habitat into conformity to try to (en)force disconnection from its sacredness.

The Tree Killers

 

 

To evade detection

they seem to come at night

with muffled drills

 

and slick injections

of herbicide

or cocktails of poison,

 

attacking the base

of the trunk

while lusting

 

for the roots — tap roots,

heart roots, lateral roots

even the fine and sinker roots;

 

to undress the crown

to suit their vision

of clarity and ‘silence’ —

 

bird homes removed,

leaf obscurantism in their vision

of skyscraper or oil-slicked

 

river, waking to traffic

without birdsong.

These tree killers

 

seem unaware

of the nature of souls,

poisoning opposite

 

a school, destroying

an ecosystem between sea

and cliffs, operating

 

as lone hands

or as paid-up hitters

to do the dirty work

 

of the moneyed

(the no proof who, me?

we're entitled brigade).

 

And sometimes,

it’s out of a deep ‘need’

for neatening the world,

 

for removing boughs

and twigs and interference

from their ambits;

 

it seems an untreated

pathology

given credence

 

by every mass

clearing of bushland

and forest, of trees

 

that have managed

to hang on till now,

offering their shade.

 

 

            John Kinsella

 

Chalice Mining's Relentless Efforts to Influence Locals

What's the correlation between Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Chalice Mining's ongoing attempts to buy a place within local community? The company's concerted efforts to inculcate itself into the region are part of its 'fait accompli' approach to asserting a mine in Julimar before the mine actually exists. This would be as much about reassuring markets and investors as it is about actualities, but the ease with which they have gained a foothold is disturbing and a very real threat to Julimar forest and the world ecology. Claims that it will help the planet through 'green metals' mining while destroying (then 'rehabilitating'?... euphemism!) a native forest are ludicrous and very much part of the 'reset' of environmental values in which an either/or scenario is being foisted on us: i.e. 'green tech' as our saviour, even if it means the (extensive) loss of natural environment. Of course, loss of natural environment damages climate and means rapid extinction events. Where people are making profit (and vast profits at that), you can be guaranteed the well-being of environment is not their primary thought!

On the Scales of the Dragon: the Metamorphosis of Chalice Mining as It

            Sweet-talks Toodyay in Preparation for Its Conquest

                        of Old Environmental Values with the New

                                    ‘Environmentalism’ of Capital

 

‘Apply Now’ written over

            ‘green metals’

                        low-carbon-tech scales

of the dragon

            revaluing

                        value,

            each beast of burden

and predator,

            each declaration

of ‘We will...’;

                        behold each

            donation

to local causes,

            each contribution

                        to the bigger picture:

ergo, playground equipment

            for child-citizens. Take

                        the spirit of occasions,

take Chalice mining —

                                           new values

            ‘environmentalists’: witness

that advert

            for ‘local employment’

                        qua

‘Initiatives

                    to protect

            and rehabilitate

                                         the environment’:

rehabilitate prior to erasure

            of forest

                        takes initiative...

a child-like

            cathexis.

                        Ahead of the game.

Cart before the burden.

That’s the spirit?

 

 

            John Kinsella

 

Save Gelorup Forest Corridor and Ecology from a Rampant Main Roads and a Brutal Assault on the Environment by State and Federal Governments

The clearing of the corridor resumes. Speak now, act now, contribute in any non-violent way you can to stop this horror!

In the poem below a ringtail possum speaks to people. Why not? Why shouldn't it speak out before it is deleted by the machinery of 'progress'?! The Bunbury Outer Ring Road does not need to happen. Innumerable jarrah, marri, tuart and other trees will be lost forever along with all they sustain, protect and live with in the forest corridor.

Gelorup Ringtail Possum Speaks Against Ring Road and Destruction of its Home

I am sure among the piles of woodchips

you’ll speak of geometry and soil density,

of run-off and traffic flow, I am sure

you’ll eye off what you’ve haven’t yet

taken of the forest and speak of people

and industry, speak development

and traffic flow. Ringtails/ringroads

are interchangeable? You might even say

congestion and connectivity, and I am

sure the word ‘relief’ will come in there

somewhere. I am sure you can’t or won’t

believe that possums speak, or if you

are willing to accept we speak among

ourselves, then likely you won’t realise

that we translate all you say within earshot.

And even if you understand that we

understand every word of destruction

you utter, you’d likely blame us

for not acting to protect each other.

Try speaking against a machine

coming down on you, or knocking

your head off. Brutal, isn’t it? You humans

don’t fare too well against machines either.

You’ve a sad history of treating people

like you treat the forest. A sad history

of abusing all life that knows the forest

as home. There’s not many of us left here,

we ringtails among the cockatoos

and myriad other ‘species’ you don’t

bother acknowledging. And the great trees

of great span and welcome, even

the dead ones which live through

our occupancy, share a knowledge

of languages you don’t dare add

to your databases, to your pocket

translators. It would shock you

to hear what was said about you

and your activities, what we

say of you before you kill us.

Murder has many degrees,

doesn’t it? Not for us. Not by you.

 

 

            John Kinsella

Another Poem In The Effort to Protect Julimar Forest From Mining

 

Silently Into the Sea of the Forest: Chalice’s Plans for Julimar Forest

 

‘And silently they crossed the threshold. And close by garden vines covered with green foliage were in full bloom, lifted high in air.’ 

            Argonautica (Book II)

 

 

Silently into the sea of the forest

 ‘soft’-tracked vehicles will creep,

no wheels to crush undergrowth

they hope in future to delete.

 

Silently into the sea of the forest,

gently gently off-track — no tyres

pressing their case, just metal expecting

what’s flattened to shoot back into place.

 

Silently into the sea of the forest

those drilling rigs are determined to go —

to reach down further than roots

and mirror the hollow of sky.

 

 

            John Kinsella

Poem in Support of the Sacred Bushland of Walwalinj ('Mount Bakewell') and the Ballardong People's Relationship to Their Country

The Euphemisms of Trails: Save Walwalinj from the Mountain Bike Trails Proposed by the York Shire and the Western Trails Alliance

 

 

It all falls by waysides

in naming ‘prosperity’ —

whose is rarely in question

because it’s a state of being

we can’t afford to question?

 

Thunderbird reacts!

 

Wheatbelt ‘alpine’ seems

contradictory in the scouring,
but all definitions up for grabs

as vested parties push bikes

hard up the mountain:

 

parodying watershed,

parodying ley-lines,

parodying ecotones,

parodying lines of naming

parodying duration.

 

Thunderbird reacts!

 

Adrenaline’s fallout

over orchids so rare...

last refuge, plethora, haven.

Life out of reach

infuriates

 

those who claim

what’s not theirs to claim,

but they know the ins

and outs of colonial law.

Read the fine detail —

 

the letter, the clause... see

point... sub-sectioned.

Behind closed doors

it may seem to some

that Ballardong people

 

are a ‘hurdle to clear’ — a jump

on the path to stimulus. Protocols

written by... see government

guidelines. See trails carved

out of a purple mountain.

 

Thunderbird reacts!

 

 

            John Kinsella

 

Supervivid Depastoralism

 A new book for those interested — Supervivid Depastoralism.

Cover Painting by Stephen Kinsella

Book description: I don't sleep much or very well (I have a recent book of poetry entitled Insomnia!), but, when I do, I often have supervivid dreams. It is said that in the time of Covid-19, many people are speaking of having more vivid dreams than usual, and though the poems in this manuscript are not-specifically 'Covid-19 poems', at certain points of the manuscript they certainly make contact with this overwhelming reality and condition of crisis. But this is essentially a book in a lifecycle of trying to confront and consider the impacts of colonial agribusiness mono agricultural practices on Australia, and how it is or isn't possible to write about these issues within the conventions of the pastoral tradition of literature. Can 'pastoralism' and environmentalism intersect in meaningful ways or is it all a colonial ruse? As a committed environmentalist and human rights landrights justice campaigner, my poetry necessarily considers the place I work out of (largely wheatbelt Western Australia), and the problems of writing poetry 'about' rurality and ecology, as well as addressing the ongoing colonialism. This new book is an attempt to push my anti, post, counter, and radical pastoral to the point where it also becomes a means of considering where agricultural culpabilities intersect with personal histories and behaviours, where creativity that comes out of a critique of invasive and damaging wrongs is in itself up for question. So this is a work of self-critique, questioning, and also aspiration to vividly confront and find ways through this crisis of presence. The 'Australian Pastoral' is a construct, a propaganda device that suits all sorts of oppressive modes, and is easily a place to retreat into even when it is being questioned: I am trying to bring all this into eclogic discussion, to contest it further as part of a long and linguistically diverse process of contestation. This book 'connects' with other books on 'pastoral' I have written over the decades, including other recent work (in progress) on odes and eclogues (longer pieces largely) - but this is a collection of shorter poems. The book could be subtitled: Eclogix.

    John Kinsella

Another Poem for the Slaughtered Trees on Toodyay Road (just south of Toodyay town)

Seeing an Excavator Tooth-extractor Push Over an Old-growth Wandoo

            On the Road to Perth Just South of Toodyay

Subset of incantatory praise of CAT planet-wrecking machinery —

the 50-ton excavator with range of buckets — shears groomers

grabs skeletons mud rock batter teeth — that will debranch and tear

a trunk will twist to push and rip out the old-growth wandoo

before your eyes as workaday as time sheets. Watch the headstrong

tree pushed over to tilt at planners’ windmills tumbling into gully

and reach for your mouth your maw always that bloody dental

analogy tedious as jawing and mouthing on and on so phobic and gory.

Excavator tracks knuckle by knuckle scallop by scallop levered

forward chain of command steel confrontation with tree flesh

resilience till give — root and nerve sans anaesthetic bare to the gaze

of sadists or maybe just the blithely indifferent. Cruel and clear sap bloody.

Subset of incantatory and cruel as therapy designed to get you back

to work that damages, keep you dulled to pulling and pushing,

tearing teeth from the jawing and mouthing the wordy planet —

induce an illiteracy of presence, an exclamation of pain without

vocabulary. After all, who can speak with a numbed lip anyway?

This CAT-induced literacy of being the excavator that pulls and pushes

as well as digs, this deployment of rough surgical equipment, this grooming

of planet to run roughshod and unmake syntax to realign sense.

Where is this room for finding in a subset of incantatory praise?

Surely there’s room to find a way in and back out via the gap

made by the CAT 50-ton excavator’s work ethic, its showing

the way to what will be — bloody mouth empty of tree-teeth; smiley-faced?

            John Kinsella