Victorian Bushires, 2009

The fires glow beneath a darkened sky:
Some burning still – the flames once more leap high.
The bush is burnt, the trees again must grow.
And we who lived here now must turn and go.

Our homes are gone: there’s nothing that remains
To keep us here, amid the falling rains.
Oh, that the rains had come a day ago
And wet the land to stop the fires’ glow.

We search to find the ones we missed last night
When all was dark and muddled in our flight.
We search once more in case we missed a spot,
But deep within, we know that they are not.

Dear land, we now must leave from this your place
To somewhere that will lack your wild grace.
But you will always be within my soul,
And one day I’ll come back to where I’m whole

I wrote this for schoolwork just after the main news coverage of the Victorian bushfires from this year, 2009. It's sopposed to be from the viewpoint of one who'd been through the fires.

Hi there, Jess! I'm June, and I'm going to review this for you ^_^.

First things first, this is a wonderful poem. I love the rhyme scheme throughout this; it was so perfect and effortless.

One thing, though! The title here is misspelled. Bushires should be bushfires, ja?

The fires glow beneath a darkened sky:

Some burning still – the flames once more leap high.

The bush is burnt, the trees again must grow.

And we who lived here now must turn and go.

So! I want to point out a little thing about the meter, or "Spoken line length" that you have here. You have a consistent meter and rhythm, but when we come to the end of this stanza, "turn and" is presenting a slight drag for the reader, when read aloud, dear.

I'd suggest dropping it. You can carry the same meaning without it, dear, and make the rhythm of this more consistent.

Our homes are gone: there’s nothing that remains

To keep us here, amid the falling rains.

Oh, that the rains had come a day ago

And wet the land to stop the fires’ glow.

First! Beautiful, beautiful stanza, dear. I absolutely love it.

I underlined there's and that. I don't think that they're giving much to this poem, and if you remove them nothing is taken away, but! You'd be sticking with the consistent line length/meter, dear. See how long that first line is?

We search to find the ones we missed last night

When all was dark and muddled in our flight.

We search once more in case we missed a spot,

But deep within, we know that they are not.

Fabulous stanza. This carries a lot of meaning for the poem, dear.

Dear land, we now must leave from this your place

To somewhere that will lack your wild grace.

But you will always be within my soul,

And one day I’ll come back to where I’m whole

Is the last line meant to end without punctuation?




* - *


So!

I loved the theme of this poem, the rhyme, and the language you used throughout this. It was very simplistic, but it help so much complexity that it was extremely enjoyable to read dear.

I would suggest running over your punctuation. I'm not going to pick at that, because it could have been for achieving a certain effect?

You did an amazing job with the viewpoint, Jess. Great job on that.

This is deserving of a gold star, dear. Keep up the great work.

June

Hey,

Writing a poem about the fires was a great thing to do. I went through these fires and witnessed them first hand so I can tell everyone who is reading this piece that that's really what it's like.

I didn't go through fires as bad as the king lake ones or anything like that but the fire was literally stopped on my doorstep. I really REALLY love the fact you wrote on this though!!!!!!

Now, because I did go through this, and I'm not sure if you did or not but if you did you'll know what I mean, but this lacked a little bit of the emotion for me. It lacked the fear I felt, the want to go home, the regret of leaving everything you and your family have built, the fear for any loved ones that stayed behind to help, the want to go and help yourself. The list goes on.

I loved how you spoke of the rains that followed the fires. I remembered sitting there after black Saturday and thinking of the irony of it all.

I am so glad you wrote on this because it really did impact me greatly. thank you.

BeckFletch. xx