Two days after rain at the lake
and water levels continue to drop.
The birds that came—Pacific black ducks,
seagulls, a heron—have all left again.
Those that remain—stilts, a couple of ibis,
welcome swallows—
are all much fewer in number.

Of course there is always the swamphen
who never leaves.
This morning he is up on perches
in places.

I walk to the gazebo.
Across to the east is the sound
of a cloud of smaller birds.
Below, some more swamphen dig
in the muddy shallows for 
something they can grip between 
their toes and crunch 
with their red beaks
now covered in mud.

The grass blows a little in a gust of breeze.
There is a noolarga black-faced cuckoo shrike
on top of a dead branch
looking down. He’s as grey as
the wood he stands on—
other than his face, that is.
Then I see another nearby.
Then another.
I look for a fourth, but 
there are only three.
Two fly off, then the other.
One returns to a nearby branch
for a moment,
scattering some welcome swallows,
his wings twitching nervously,
the way shrikes seem to do.

The place fills me with its life.
How can it not?

I think of all the knowledge 
that lives here,
as it does in other places too.
And I think of how, if we
receive it in the right name—
in the right service—
of the spirit of the Earth as a whole—
of the love of the Earth—
that such knowledge
can become the common property
of not just individuals
but of all humanity.