Flaggy Creek rainforest – coupe 737-505-0006 (Tambo)
Text by Louise Crisp | photograph by Lisa Roberts
Giant Rain Moth Abantiades atripalpis
the Sibyl…unadorned and unperfumed. Heraclitus 5th Cent
A red eye floats down through humidity and stems of stringybarks:
slender poles, thrown by the wind, grown from clear-fell 25 years ago
Black charcoal wings struck by ragged lightning: silver inscription
of the rain queen – Sibyl of the rainforest coupes above Flaggy Creek
valley. When the remaining forest is logged the rain ceases forever
Louise Crisp is the author of
Yuiquimbiang (Cordite Books 2019) shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards in 2020; and
Glide (Puncher & Wattman 2021). In 2025 Louise was awarded a Marion Orme Page Regional Creative Fellowship by the State Library of Victoria for her project
Bogong to research the archives of high-country ecologist Maisie Fawcett (S. G. M. Carr 1912-1988). “Dry Mountains” is part of the
Bogong project, a work in progress.
https://www.louisecrisp.com/
Lisa Roberts is a photographer who chases bats, blossom, disappearing trees and epic landscapes. She lives and works in Gippsland on unceded Gunnai Kurnai Country. Her current project is The future is a big sky. A survey of old forests scheduled for logging and burning. Her recent exhibition was Flying Foxes and Disappearing Trees at East Gippsland Art Gallery.
