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Special N.02 – Poets speak up to Adani

LINES OF GALILEE  

by Judith Rodriguez

There’s a line of creation

from the land

to the Wagan-Jagalingou

from unpolluted seas

to the living Reef we knew.

 

There’s a line of production

from government bribes the people paid

to coal

to railways and jobs, that’s what they ‘re saying,

and votes.

 

There’s a line of destruction

from the mountainous rift

and promises politicians

and profit-takers cannot keep,

to the sludge of ports

smearing the ancient waters

shutting down the lives of the Reef.

 

The next line of finance

will not come from tourists

fronting a reef of bones

and inland the black hole

torn in land the people own.

 

Yes, dollars and votes cheer

coal’s three-century

industrial fantasy –

polluted air

and scarred earth’s misery.

 

But see: sun, water, wind,

and thermal flows,

earth’s ancient energies

rouse in the new century

to our aid, to redeem our heritage –

 

only

devotees of votes and money

we will not hear

what the imperilled earth has said.

Published: August 2022
Judith Rodriguez

is a contemporary Australian poet.

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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