Something That Feels Like a Fossil

 

I am going back again tomorrow

I want to find something I can touch

make rubbings of

 

I already have a large chunk of cream paint

that fell on our drive the night of the fire

I put it in a bottle with some blackened leaves and

a bird feather and a small shard of

National Geographic /  charred brown

that I had kept              after the fires

 

to make something of it

 

I planned a collage on growth and rebirth

furred gums  /  Banksia sprouts  /  grass trees

all rising up from my blackened leaves

but later I read in a newspaper

that someone had done it already

and I have taken no more measures to preserve

my tokens

 

before long they will moulder

in their own dust

 

age and decay

 

but this was not a slow gathering of tired bones taken off

to a quiet part of the forest  

 

no crust of aged metal

corrosion                                   flaking off of rocks

 

                        this was fire

                        white     hot

                       

                          

 

                 the stuff of raw life

 

                        dying hard

 

                        erasing traces

 

(C) Pat Pillai