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Special N.02 – Poets speak up to Adani

2030, Adani, a Retrospective

by Michelle Cahill

 

Remember Gujarat? Tidal mangroves were blocked

by bunds & embankments, Chinese MoU,

revenues from aluminium, polysilicon, animal feeds.

 

The Paris Climate, OECD delegates sipped their lattes,

declaiming coal dust, steam choking the fish,

bleached nuggets, burgeoning coral cemeteries.

 

We, with our winning smiles, tweeting environmental

charities, retweeting memes, protests, petitions, trending,

bracketed clauses in the draft agreement, spineless

 

politicians, Tourism Australia. Never mind Sir David

or Obama— we needed Murrawah, Amelia, Xiuhtezcatl

to sing the rewilding of grasslands, reefs, native title—

 

Who knew that Subrata Maity and Claude Alvares

defended the Mundra, or Mormugão Port in Goa from

pollution violations?  The permits were not revoked.

 

When 10 per cent of robots lived in cities compliant

with WHO air quality guidelines, when the black

rhinoceros outnumbered the black-throated finch?

 

Nevertheless we sweltered, with news analysis full

blast, we dialled up air cons, we talked prophylactic

gene editing, from monkey to pig to Homo Saps.

 

We wrote dirges for the third world, prohibiting diesel

& motorcycle distributors, reversing neo-colonialism

with a corporate warrant to exhume the Galilee basin.

 

Everyone was abused; the state’s litigations, economic

futures, First nations, mind & memory’s quaint algorithms,

poems festering, composed in acid rain; volatile

in smog.

 

Published: August 2022
Michelle Cahill

is an Australian novelist and  poet who lives in Sydney.

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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