Firestorm

Everyone I speak to feels shaken by the terrible firestorms that hit Victoria a few days ago. Those of us who live in forested areas may be feeling more worried and more vulnerable than those who live in the city, but I have the feeling that the whole community, the whole country even, is in mourning. I feel shocked and numbed by the pictures and sounds of destruction and horror that I've read in the newspapers, and seen on TV and heard on the radio. Sometimes I cannot look at another photograph, or hear another report or watch vision of burnt out landscapes. The scale of human suffering is immense. Nor must we forget the suffering of animals, birds and other sentient beings. This tragedy close to home also reminds us of the suffering of others in wars where burning people with bombs is actually intended!

We turn to each other to test our feelings and to put them into words that we exchange. We turn to the poets, writers and artists of all kinds to hear what they can say for us, what visions emerge from the ashes. I remembered this poem by Marie E. J. Pitt, a Victorian woman who was born near Bairnsdale in 1869 and grew up on a farm there.

A Gallop of Fire

When the north wind moans through the blind creek courses
And revels with harsh, hot sand,
I loose the horses, the wild, red horses
I loose the horses, the mad, red horses,
And terror is on the land.

With prophetic murmur the hills are humming,
The forest-kings bend and blow;
With hoofs of brass on the baked earth drumming,
O brave red horses, they hear us coming,
And the legions of Death lean low.

O'er the wooded height, and the sandy hollow
Where the boles to the axe have rung,
Though they fly the foeman as flies the swallow,
The fierce red horses, my horses, follow
With flanks to the faint earth flung.

Or with frenzied hieroglyphs, fear embossing
Night's sable horizon bars,
Through tangled mazes of death-darts crossing,
I swing my leaders and watch them tossing
Their red manes against the stars.

But when South winds sob in the drowned creek courses
And whisper to hard wet sand,
I hold the horses, the spent red horses,
I hold the horses, the tired red horses,
And silence is on the land.

Yea, the South wind sobs 'mong the drowned creek courses
For sorrows no man shall bind-
Ah, God! for the horses, the black plumed horses,
Dear God! for the horses, Death's own pale horses,
That raced in the tracks behind.