June 2019
NOTE: I wrote “It’s Not Our Fault” when the news first broke of what the papers described as “a million fish” dead in the Darling River. The basin known as the Murray/Darling is Australia’s largest river basin. Over the next week or so the various interest groups responded in the usual media forms. It wasn’t too hard to predict what the responses would be so I can take no credit in the fact that they were pretty much exactly what my poem expresses. Since then, there have been more environmental disasters of a similar kind. Makes me ask a few questions. Is greed killing the earth? Are we going to continue to bury our collective head in a mound of dollars? Is it possible to look forward and back and to consider the impact of our actions on all the life we share the earth with? Or are these events the harbingers of apocalypse?
It’s Not Our Fault.
A million fish lie white-belly up and rotting
in shallow water of the Darling River.
The mighty river with its 40,000 year old fish traps
is drying into a dying trickle,
its tributaries into muddy ponds.
Upstream, corporate cotton growers
squint and stare over vast irrigation reserves.
“It’s not our fault,” they say.
“We only take our entitlement.
It’s the drought. Blame nature.”
Downstream, the pumps with their
too often deregulated water metres
steal the precious scarce water
into networks of open channels.
It’s not our fault,” they say.
“Everybody’s doing it.
It’s the drought. Blame nature.”
Across the entire basin and beyond,
nearly half the Australian continent,
a record heatwave looms.
Summer temperatures soar to 47C.
Plants droop. Water holes are mud.
Panting roos seek relief but find none.
Birds sit noiseless and still, wings and beaks open.
“It’s a tragedy,” says the politician,
“But it’s not our fault.
There’s not much we can do.
It’s the drought. Blame nature.”
But a million fish lie white-belly up and stinking
in the algae bloom oxygen-deprived water
and each day come warnings
of more disaster to come.
Dead fish in the Darling River, Australia, January, 2019.
Come, Companions.
We have stayed too long.
Betrayal sent us to this cove
and grief has kept us here,
growing fat and dull
in indolence and self-pity.
Why tarry longer?
Our boat is repaired.
The day is clear.
Salt is in the air,
wind on our faces.
Remember how the water roared,
the sea sprayed and our boat surged
before the towering swell.
Dolphins frolicked in our wake.
Great whales rose to breach by our side.
We laughed at storm.
We slept beneath diamond brilliance.
Now throw in your sacks.
Take up your sword and shield.
Climb in.
I hold our vessel still.
Have courage.
Adversity brings strength
to body and mind.
Fear not failure.
Fear only stagnation,
that dullness that first seeps
then sucks all spirit away.
Do we not have choice?
Are we not masters of our fate?
We will not look backwards.
We have no time for revenge.
We leave behind the pettiness
that stranded us here.
Our way is to the unknown west.
We will see things yet unseen.
We seek whatever lies
beyond the setting sun.
If we fall, we fall in striving.
Now dip your oars and row.
Our first challenge is before us.
The current is swift,
the channel narrow,
the waves curl and crash on the cliff.
Out yonder lies the open sea.
Now row. Pull hard, my friends.
Bend your backs.
Row. Row.
-For my indomitable sister, Jean,
who was ready to launch long before me-
© 2019 Neil Creighton
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