from Providence Ponds

Louise Crisp

Plantationocene
 

No continuous plantation unit should exceed 1400ha (LCC 1983:35)

Weeks are lost and (I) become disoriented in the endless geometry of pine forests

Tracking the tributaries of Providence in the upper & middle catchment: California,

Honeysuckle, Paisley, Middle and Sandy Creeks appear & disappear as (I) encounter

Continuous plantations incarcerated ponds enduring underground resurface this wet

Winter a yellow scum of pine pollen floats on any pond exposed to the sky between

The green hoardings of plantations plantations plantations plantations plantations pine

Kanangra Rd
 

The wind is the only thing alive in the triangular black shadows of the pine forest

No wonder –

the plantations evicted more than 300 species of fauna & 700 species of flora

the fallen winter pine needles lie thickly fathomed red along the rows

the early morning freezing cold is held against the earth for hours

longer than it ever was in the open warming bush of hereabouts

at the edge of the road a Prickly Geebung turns back                          Persoonia juniperina

its exquisite yellow petals each flower a miniscule

resounding

of the lost

Sand Slug
 

Well we know that white-Australia is a sad failure, Jim Everett 2014:40
 

The land lain bare

Band the laird

-s’ sheep

Expanded cleared land & over

Ran the catchment

Ran the land

Down

Erosion saddened deep

Incised the ponds & lower

Down

Infilled with sand:

The slug moves down

Sandy Ck & Providence

Now at Fiddlers

Junction

 
 
References
 

Plantationocene

Land Conservation Council (LCC) (1983) Proposed Recommendations – Gippsland Lakes Hinterland Area, Land Conservation Council, Melbourne, Victoria

Harraway, D. (2015) ‘Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Planationocene, Chthulucene: making Kin’, Environmental Humanities, Vol 6, 2015 pp 159-65

Kanangra Rd

Bramwell, M. & Rossack, B. (2006) Biodiversity Action Planning – Bairnsdale Foothills Landscape Zone, East Gippsland Bioregion, Department of Sustainability and Environment, Victoria, pp 41, 43

Sand Slug

Everett, J. (2014) “Savage Nation” in Southerly Vol 74, no 2, ‘Australian Dreams 1’, pp 27-42

Louise Crisp’s publications include Ruby Camp: a Snowy River series(Spinifex Press), pearl & sea fed (Hazard Press NZ), and Uplands (Five Islands Press). Her long poem series Providence Ponds was written with the support of an Australia Council New Work grant.