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’s latest collection is Glide published by Puncher and Wattman (2021). A previous collection Yuiquimbiang (Cordite Books 2019) was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and highly commended in the Wesley Michel Wright Poetry Prize. Her work focuses on specific regional environments of south-eastern Australia and experiments with the formal possibilities of integrating poetics and environmental activism. Crisp lives in East Gippsland on the unceded lands of the Gunaikurnai nation.
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.
