OUR TARKINE

Look backwards to where we have come.  We are anonymous.  No one knows our pathway more than they know our future.  A sodden trail leading upwards, substituting the sparse understory of the lower forest for a non-existent canopy.  Frozen, white fingers mimicking the silent stags guarding the history of this forest. Tarkine.  Our Tarkine. ​

The buttons of the Buttongrass dance a silent tango, intimate and yet rarely touching.  That’s where we belong… intimately a part of Tarkine’s waltz.  Observing without touching, admiring without desiring.  Tarkine.  Our Tarkine. 
 
Opposites attract.  Light rain feeds the vegetation whilst we shrug deeper into our jackets.  Grey undergrowth to grey skies on grey alpine soils.  Red raincoats a reminder of our differences.  Tarkine.  Our Tarkine. 
 
Roads dug through deep culverts, winding us from one sensory overload to another.  A white bridge spanning a rusted river, jade moss clinging to its edges like the silvery mist clinging to the ridgelines.  Once again, we look to the white stags spreading their fingers towards an inconspicuous sky.  If we could take flight like the Currawongs we wouldn’t need the roads.  Tarkine.  Our Tarkine.
 
Her peat soils hide her wealth.  Gold, tin, iron and more.  She produces beauty so heightened we often rip off her surface to expose her emotions.  Inevitably she will bleed her pain into the surrounding waterways as slurry is dug from her heart, feeding outside investments.  Tarkine.  Our wounded Tarkine.
 
She cannot hide.  Vast Myrtles a true giveaway of her affluence.  She cannot escape.  Let her beauty not face the fate of the Thylacine and Tarkine people.  Tarkine.  Our trapped Tarkine.  
 
Flick off the leech, swat the marsh fly, wave away the mosquito and wash the mud off down spinning drains.  We barely belong here but we are Tarkine’s caretakers.  Stave off those bearing down on our Tarkine! Wave them away like an insect.  Tarkine.  Our Tarkine.
 
If we can learn to run we can learn to say no.  Say no to her helplessness. 
 
If we can learn to speak we can learn to say yes.  Say yes to her protection. 
 
Without a voice, she needs our help.  Stand up for her freedom like we avidly protect our own.
 
Tarkine.  Let her become your Tarkine.