Brooke Forbes

 I drove past a Mparntwe grass fire;

scolded earth,

smouldering fallen trees and

spitting flames thrown forward into an ashy air. 

Birds soared and

I gave thought to animal homes ruined,

and the regeneration that needed to take place.

As I drove through a landscape

thick with smoke

I wasn’t thinking about my own safety;

I turned my head towards a burning log,

then darted across the road to avoid a fallen tree,

ashes and discarded logs scattered,

smashed into the asphalt.

I instead thought about how the fire was part of me,

its burning mass, its sacrifice, its evanescence.

I thought about how the tiny flames

still alight

are the parts of me still burning;

with fear,

with illness,

with flashbacks to darker times. 

Times when the bright lights of a ward

snuffed out any natural blaze or glory. 

Times when in protesting

for my own rights

I was met with a stiff back of a hand,

guided forward and into a light unknown. 

Today, there was a lightness to the smoke,

as I drive through the tunnel of darkness

I am reminded of the natural light at the end. 

That sweet sight of freedom,

perched on the edge of the Stuart Highway,

beckoning me forward

and into the day. 

A car goes past,

then a truck,

and the rolling sounds of civilisation bring me forward –

I have survived,

yet again,

another apocalypse.