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Special N.02 – Poets speak up to Adani

Earth Interview in the Anthropocene

by Anne Elvey

 

An alphabetic language is not mine. It was always mine

Before you spoke, before you wrote it. A language in which you ask me to speak about

Climate, one of my truer tongues. You did not invent it any more than you did

Dinosaurs. You might be thinking that I only react to outside

Events—asteroids, meteorites, humankind, your

Few fallen into prosperity. I act with the

Grace of my law. It is not

Human. I do not resist, nor do I conspire. Multiple

I, I am always the more that you cannot escape. This is

Joy and jeopardy for you, that the things you require, you

Kill. What is it like, you ask me, to be under the Anthropocene

Like you? You have read the Enuma Elish, how even the

Mighty ancient gods had unruly children. I do

Not call you my children. The relationship,

Our relationship, is more complex. Parenthood is a cliché

Proffered to simplify. It is a cliché to say you arrived late after many emergents, lateness a

Quality you took for first place, as if you were last, would last, outlast a

Ration of being. If you ask me, it is like the shiver riding at

Speed. I throw up cyclone and storm, hurricane,

Typhoon, languages for them, drought, fire, each in its place, not

Undoing cycles—they were always infused with chaos—but the

Vigour has changed, is ever-changing, I am changed.

Weather is my stirring cloak (your

X-rated news), my habitat, my atmosphere and

Yes. Yes, you are right to notice the difference, to consider

Zoology, to recall your zooid entanglements, your species of geology.

‘Earth Interview in the Anthropocene’ was previously published in Rabbit 12: Late (Autumn 2014): 65–66.

Published: August 2022
Anne Elvey

Anne is an interdependent researcher, poet and editor who is outgoing managing editor of Plumwood Mountain journal.

An Australian and international
journal of ecopoetry and ecopoetics.

Plumwood Mountain Journal is created on the unceded lands of the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to elders past, present and future. We also acknowledge all traditional custodians of the lands this journal reaches.

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