The path snakes through a nest of natives stitched
by blady grass, passes a pocket orchard one side
vegetable garden the other. Big male kangaroos
liked to relax and stretch out on the bed of bark chips.
The garden is safe, no dogs and no roo shooters.
Now, after record rainfall the way in is bog, the chips
melting to soil growing plants weighing the weed mat,
I pick the weeds and destroy them slowly in the compost.
Nothing is wasted. Life is authentic.
Death is authentic, the circulation of energy rules.
Much earlier, Venus and Jupiter glowed together like
cigarettes in a spy film. Again, not one shooting star.
A crow, rowing across a balloon-blue cloudless sky
reveals something of the steep genealogy of black.
Life is a luxury which is not sustainable.
‘For man is more ill, uncertain, changeable and unstable than any other animal, without a doubt, – he is the sick animal: what is the reason for this? . . . he, the great experimenter with himself, the unsatisfied and insatiable, struggling for supreme control against animals, nature and gods. Friedrich Nietzsche [i]
‘Star gazers across Australia are in for a treat in the early hours of Saturday with the Eta Aquariid – one of the best meteor showers in the southern hemisphere – due to optimal viewing conditions. Named after Eta Aquarii, the brightest star in the Aquarius constellation, the annual meteor show is famed for its connection to Halley’s comet. Each year, Earth passes through the debris left in the path of the comet’s orbit. As debris enters the Earth’s orbit it disintegrates, leaving fiery streaks in the night sky.’[ii]
[i] Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality (1887), trans., Carol Diethe, Cambridge UP, 2007, p88.
[ii] Stephanie Tran, ‘Eta Aquariids meteor shower 2022, The Guardian, 6 May, 2022.
