Earth Incantations
KAYLEIGH GREIG
Crack open the compendium,
when magic glowed in everything,
from the shape of gullies
to the shade of galahs.
Creatures were deities
worshipped by words,
invoked by incantations
and dances in the dark.
And she was the creator,
pebbled with scales
like a cobblestone path;
the way
from nothing
to the Dreaming.
Her rainbow sheen shimmered
in the eyes of ancient folk.
For sixty thousand years,
she slithered across their tongues
in visions of creation,
the arcs of her lashing body
carving valleys, mountains, streams.
Against the backdrop of black,
she was vibrant,
forked tongue flickering in the flames
of campfire stories
until pale hands smothered,
brushing away the charcoal
and leaving only ash.
With grey eyes
under colourless lids,
I only wish I could see her beauty
the way they did.
On the white pages of the white world,
she is bleached.
She is quieted,
with less lips left to sing her into being.
And so she turns tail
over ravaged riverbeds
mountains mauled by mines,
and coves cursed by colonisers,
finding one place untouched
where she curls up
in a still pool
cast like a gemstone
into the gorge,
and lies dormant
until her shine can be restored.
As her story fades,
others struggle on
in the absence of her song.
Possum Magic tried to fill the hole,
bewitching us with phantasms
of fae-like furry friends.
Scampering in green and golden boughs,
footsteps faint as fairies,
our ringtailed and brushtailed dryads
had us entranced.
Hypnotised
until moonlight bowed to day,
we missed the sleight of hand.
Grandma Poss
is no magician,
nor Hush quiet.
These creatures go unseen
not from any glamour of invisibility;
they do not disappear from sight
but from the night itself.
Rooftop metal burns their feet.
They cannot dance on rust.
Concrete does not feed their spark,
Cement’s not pixie dust.
Possums dwindle.
Snakes evaporate.
Our fairies
and our sorceress
leave a gap in their wake.
Flicking through the grimoire,
science is a spell.
Its incantations temptations,
promising restoration.
A, C, G, T flash like runes
ready for the ritual—
Genetic code,
conjured
into a new form.
With just a touch of animal alchemy,
a drop of DNA,
and a splash of experimentation,
all that’s left
is a cauldron in which to brew
this potion of resurrection.
Something close enough will do,
she only needs a womb.
When she’s ready,
belly swelling,
it will be a marvellous misdirection.
Turn the cameras from the wild
where creatures grimace,
ghosts in the making,
and point it at the progress
while we all join hands,
witches singing chants
in praise of the illusion,
unable to divine
the ephemeral future
of de-extinction.
We can work with every Ouija board,
wield wands
and trust in talismans
but the one thing we chafe to change
is the crushing crystal ball,
rolling over the decades to come.
This scientific séance may bring them back
but it cannot hold their spirits down
as they trickle through our fingers,
a temporary apparition
as the hex of humanity
and the patterns of our society
drag them right back to the grave.
The song of the serpentine sorceress sputters.
Possum Magic mumbles a mirage.
Animal alchemy is the amulet we clutch,
an occult destined to fizzle out,
forgotten,
as earth’s magic wanes
and our world is drained, mundane.
As a biologist, creative writer, wildlife rescuer, bush regenerator, Deputy Editor of Grapeshot Magazine and journalist of Beaches COVERED., Kayleigh Greig writes everything from rescue records to scientific articles to memoirs, but her specialty is mixed prose and poetry. Regardless of genre, her symbol-centric writing is often concerned with conservation.
