AFTERMATH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 21 January 1939, Page 15

AFTERMATH

I expect all the boys and girls of the Wonderland Club have read in the paper about the tragic bush fires in Victoria, Australia, or perhaps you have heard your Mothers and Fathers talking about the thousands of acres of forest which have been destroyed, and hundreds of homes, too. We have bush fires here in our own New Zealand, and on the ranges in the Nelson Province we can see the black ruin left by the scourge of fire. In a poem called “Aftermath,” which was first published in the Sydney “Morning Herald,” Marjorie McKechnie, an eighteen-year-old Australian girl, has drawn a vivid word-picture of the desolation wrought by fire. All day the flames like banners on the wind Swept down the hills; above the heavy fold Of blinding smoke the sun shone all day long— A ruby veiled in web upon web of gold. And now in bitter silence ’neath the stars The naked gums stand twisted with the pain Of scarred and desolate branches, and oppressed By memories of gods invoked in vain. No swaying saplings, pale and elfln slender, No silver waves of bracken tempt the breeze, No wraithlike blossom, fragile, poignant-scented, But sullen earth and grotesque flailing trees.