Today at the lake the water levels are low.
It looks like there are salt remnants
on the drying mud
like there hasn’t been
in previous years.

I only see kwirlam the swamphen,
nyalkaniny the white ibis,
and wayan the white-faced heron
down on the dry bed.
Wardong the crow and
djiddy djiddy the wagtail
are also busy on the edges.
Kaa Kaa the kookaburra
swoops wardong at one point.

There is a roof of soft alto stratus, 
and a gentle south westerly blows,
keeping the whole morning cooler.

I go to my usual spot on the east side.
There are two people sitting under 
the eucalypt on the bench.
They’re talking about the patriarchy
and societal values.
I imagine them late teens, early twenties,
uni students maybe.
But when I walk on I see that the boy
is maybe 18, the girl maybe 13.

I walk to the southern jetty and sit
under the figs.
To the north, the lake is all grass.
The sound of lorikeets fills the sky,
like they tend to do more at sunset
and sunrise.

I say the name of the lake in Noongar
and in English.
I see what effect that has—
of bringing the depths of the thing 
into relation with the depths of the name—
what effect it has in me.

(I suppose that the named lake will live on 
after the lake itself has 
dried up completely 
into nothing physical left.
It will all be a higher water element then.)

We name and so (re)make the world,
as the Earth itself is filled 
by what lives and weaves 
in its true name.

And so we come to know and (re)make places
by what they are, but also by 
what they are 
now that the Earth itself
has been renamed.