Writer
CROCODILES, bull sharks and other Styx-like creatures surf the tidal bore but never at your command. They laugh if you try to organise your paltry life around theirs. Their lives dance to the harmony of the Goddess Invulnerable. They dance in gravitational attraction: they dance at The Styx.
THERE is talk of mining The Styx.
Bad idea.
Half way up the east coast of Queensland is an iridescent turquoise triangle. It glows.
Look on Google maps for the turquoise glow. It is The Styx, a tidal bore river system, flowing in and around Ogmore.
It is an ecosystem out of most people’s view, a fragile unique ecosystem. Soon it will be slaughtered.
That’s what coal mines do: they slaughter the fragile, the innocent.
Our Styx region in and around Ogmore will be quietly slaughtered with poison run-off that few real people know about.
That’s what happens with coal mines after a rain event. The profit-people apply and are granted permits to release poison: a rotting string of one offs, approved.
A coal mine is more than jobs. It is mega-profit for the already rich. Importantly, though, it is a seduction of our vulnerable with the thought of jobs. Even temporary jobs will do it: the hope of a temporary livelihood for our suffering communities.
The bit they don’t tell us about is that, without our knowing, the profit people violate us; all of us. They exploit our iridescent turquoise triangle and flush poison in, over and through our land, creeks and rivers. They poison us.
They eat our glow.
JUST RELEASED NOW! I’m so proud of my sister, Valerie Cameron, and our friend, Robert Cumings, on the release of their first collaborative album “What is precious by decree…“. Their collaboration is named, Gladsome Throng. Valerie’s remarkable poetry and Robert’s remarkable soundscapes discuss difficult conversations such as climate change and covid 19. Theirs is a unique voice. I feel honoured to know these two artists. You have never heard anything like it! Gladsome Throng album, “What is precious by decree …”.
My sister, Valerie, bred Toledo twenty-four-ish years ago. She was very careful to select the bestest Australian Stock Horse Stallion, which means the best looking.
Toledo sees himself as a wild one. Indeed he has the self esteem of the majority of Australian white entitled males.
In Toledo’s case, it’s all a scam. He doesn’t like being thought badly of and very rarely does anything wrong.
He, his partner Bonnie [rescued standardbred pacer], and I [rescued by Bonnie and Toledo] drove to Tassie last year [we came back too, but that was this year] and never had a cross word.