Tragicocomedia

Once, I thought the word “hiatus” meant the high-point of something, akin to apex or pinnacle, and can only hope I never invoked derision for using it inappropriately. To say that there has been something of a hiatus with this blog is an understatement, but my head has been immersed in climate science, astrophysics and composing poetry, when not lost to digital distractions. There is a lot to write about, but when I write, poetry is my top priority and until I reach my target (c. 50 poems) I’ll not be writing much else.

My enthusiasm for photography hasn’t waned, but rather the repetitive cycle of places I visit has reduced my enthusiasm for trying to squeeze some new angle out of the all-too-familiar. It would be preferable to have new subject matter rather than create variations on the same old themes, yet the arrival of a second child has reduced mobility further still so that my orbit is now more Mercurial than Neptunian, in an astronomical analogy.

Now having another baby – 8 months last Sunday – I have been gifted a second opportunity to observe the naked ape in its infancy and ponder questions of evolutionary selection and priority. Practically every stage in growth has been refined by evolution on account of its utility and trying to make sense of even simple questions such as why babies automatically put things in their mouths or why the bottom two teeth come first, means I’m constantly engaging in thought experiments that take me back to the African Savannahs or, indeed, to the trees.

This collection features a bunch of apes; showcasing their lifestyles and manufactured habitats, including some poor sods in prison at Taronga Zoo. Other cousins also feature, refugees from the ravaged landscape, dependent on our measly charity for a chance to survive and thrive. They’ll all be dead soon, bar the “pests”. As the Holocene comes to a close, as we say farewell to abundance and embrace the next extinction, we’ll one day wish we’d never left the savannah in the first place.