23 December, VIRUS 2020
US hits record number of Covid-19 hospitalisations. CNN
Covid-19 has now reached every continent after Antarctica recorded its first outbreak. CNN
Organic meat production just as bad for climate, study finds. The Guardian
EOS melts looking north and smoulders south to Smoky Cape (named by Lt Cook seeing fires burning there 250 years ago).
Angle variable metallic green or red, iridescent Chalcopteroides genus, one of the rulers, the most abundant of all insects and diverse. Australia has an estimated 80,000 species, many unclassified- yet they are also bumbling flier and seemingly one of the most helpless of all insects.
I rescue this one, a cockroach I wouldn’t. Life is not democratic.
The Swans fly straight, sure of their purpose.
~
Christmas shopping. We stop at the lookout, south the swill of Newee Creek and the Nambucca River, beyond the Koala Dreaming women’s mountain Yarriabini with the mobile phone towers.
East, the mouth vomits turbid water, its gig fat tongue blackening the Pacific.
The sea has lost its joyous look, but bounces us around just the same a little cooler than before the rains. Arms revolve, legs kick, but the waves roll you, a playful sense of helplessness, a letting go.
I feel nauseous by the changing rooms, the sweet scent of death cadaverine and putrescine amino acids breaking down. My reaction an evolutionary warning to keep back from more than 400 volatile organic compounds exploding from a carcass, released in a perfectly natural set of events.
Having felt disgust we carry on to hunt for food. Cars are circling the car park, impatient I nab one of two spots in ‘Pick up parking’ not being used, pile the trolley with more than we will need. A checkout opens just in front of us. I feel fortunate, hate queuing. The small things, so unimportant, fill the day.
We were the only ones warming masks, at Wyn’s request.
~
I open the door to the deck and jump, a feeling of surprise more than repulsion, next to my hand is a spider as big as my hand. I use a fly-swat to gently encourage it out, open the flyscreen, and it vanishes. We search and find it has flashed into the groove of the jamb, I ease it out and close the doors.
Our first barbecue for a while. I find new life forms, dark pads of life, swirls of what could be algae, a dark green in the grease tray. I remember the spider and find it on the wall, a lovely brown, we have three species I think (of over 150 Huntsman in Australia).
I am lucky (again), I cook the prawns perfectly (am art). Meanwhile the world is wounded, throats are parched, bellies distended, bullets flying, mouths moaning. And that’s just on every successful species. What difference do we make? I have saved a life.
At dusk Black Cockatoos gather around us.
