29 Saturday Aug 2020
Posted in Fifty words
29 August 2020
From the blue sky and gritty road a memory appears of London, in 2015. Walking down to Maida Vale, to the café with its wall of dazzling liqueurs. A grandmother with a tender baby in a pram, I am an alien element in that booming room of concrete and glass.
28 Friday Aug 2020
Posted in Fifty words
28 August 2020
Every day is just a day. Today the sun rose at 6.18 am and sets at 5.35 pm. Today, in particular, I remember my nephew. His captivating smile, his pirate ship and swordplay. He stopped smiling in his teens, unprotected by Lego crossbows. Twenty-five years lifetime, ten years death time.
27 Thursday Aug 2020
Posted in Fifty words
27 August 2020
The magpie glides in and lands halfway up the tree’s canopy, pauses, then hops to its nest at the top. Underneath, we blow rainbow bubbles. We make tunnels in the sandpit and climb in the cubby. The toddler pushes the four-year-old down the slide. A game that bears endless repetition.
26 Wednesday Aug 2020
Posted in Fifty words
26 August 2020
Even when she was nearly blind my mother would eke her way through the death notices. Now that she has gone I do it for her, noting the names lovingly consigned to graves by grieving families. I am assailed by memories of childhood and since. Kindnesses offered, conversations left unspoken.
25 Tuesday Aug 2020
Posted in Fifty words, Wildlife in the city
25 August 2020
The most eagerly anticipated thing was the ice-cream, but the park held surprises. A fence had been built to protect a nesting plover. We inspected both fence and supercilious plover. Then over there – slowly slowly – quietly! – we crept close to watch two vigilant wood duck parents and ten tiny ducklings.
24 Monday Aug 2020
Posted in Fifty words
24 August 2020
I thought I saw rain outside, but it was only the glimmer of a car’s headlights on the street plants. I’ll never tire of rain now, senses sharpened by those months when we waited wretchedly for any grey cloud to break. At night, wallabies lapped noisily at the chestnut trough.
23 Sunday Aug 2020
Posted in Fifty words
23 August 2020
In the city park grunting men play football and families push prams. At the shops, the smell from the Vietnamese café spreads tender tendrils through the air. At the market the bread woman has one loaf left for me. I walk past the demolished carwash site. Its trees have vanished.
22 Saturday Aug 2020
Posted in Fifty words, Tapitallee tales
22 August 2020
I caught the bush in suffragette colours yesterday. Newly green trees, hardenbergia draping pointillist purple blooms over fences, shy unnameable bushes dotted in white and, in a low haze, the violet flowers of Patersonia, native iris, three triangular petals windmilling from the centre. Overnight they shrivelled, purple blobs on stems.
22 Saturday Aug 2020
Posted in Fifty words, Tapitallee tales
21 August 2020
A sudden burst of rain hit while I was eating my soup, hard drops that sounded cold just from the way they hit the roof. Once it stopped I went out to get more wood for the fire. The deck was wet. The cheerful sound of frogs filled the night.
11 Tuesday Feb 2020
Posted in Climate change challenge
Climate change. What can I do? Four words, four questions. Just change the emphasis.
What can I do?
This is the easy question. There’s so much you can do. For starters:
What can I do?
This is a more despondent question. It asks whether it’s possible to do anything in the face of this all-encompassing threat fuelled by human greed – a greed that seems uncontrollable and unresponsive to the damage it’s causing, unwilling to accept its murderous consequences. But do you doubt your own ability to effect change, or the power of collective effort? Consider water restrictions. They’re put in place to limit our collective use of a natural resource. They’re used regularly, embraced by the community, and have a tangible effect.
What can I do?
This question is about the power or weakness of the individual. It’s a mess of individual choices and decisions that has got us into this mess – individual choices influenced by a group-think about ‘needing’ things and the devaluing of care for community and wider consequences. Has this devaluing been encouraged by technology replacing face-to-face interaction, reducing our possibility for empathy for others and the effects of our actions on the wider world? Or have we as humans always valued ourselves over others, unable to see ourselves as part of a web of interconnectedness of humans and the rest of the ecology of the planet, the universe? Either way, if individual choices got us into this mess, surely they can get us out of it again.
What can I do?
This question is about your willingness for action. The answer is that you can not give up, not accept that we are doomed. You can be bolder. You can voice your concerns. When people say, ‘Let’s not get political’ you can say ‘It’s not about politics. It’s about human survival.’ When people say, ‘That’s alarmist,’ you can say ‘What other body of scientific thinking do you question?’ If the car’s brakes are faulty do you just pretend nothing is happening or do you do something about it? You can think up your own metaphors. There is so much caution in our world, so many seat belts and helmets and little yellow things on posts – why aren’t we being cautious about this? Protest against the big businesses that are making money while the world burns. Protest against the politicians who think that a burnt house is an economic opportunity for builders.
If you don’t do it, who will?
Kathy Prokhovnik 