Clear skies, no wind,
high teens / low 20s,
waning gibbous hanging 
above trees and smoke
on the western horizon.

The swamphens walk
the edges of their grass and lake.
The Pacific black ducks
rest on a log within 
the confines of the water.
The shelducks hang on the 
drier peripheries.
The dotterels totter back
and forth across the watery
threshold.
A white-faced heron walks
ghostly and lonely 
on a dry flat between 
water and grass.
Four janjarak
black-winged stilts
wander the water area
to the south.

Above, kanamit the welcome swallow
flies and flits and cuts the air.
Djiddy djiddy the wagtail
drops down in places, lifts
off a log, lands on mud.
Above, two red-tailed black cockatoos
call and cross over.
Wardong the crow of course.

There are jakalak wattlebirds in the 
paperbarks flowering with bees.
Smaller birds in another paperbark
drop down in and out of the reeds.
Grass birds too? Warblers?
I think I spot a crake 
shoot out of then back into
the taller rushes—just a shadow really—
a buff-banded rail maybe.

Lorikeets higher above.
No raptors seen today.

All these layers.
All of it filled by ideas that live.
Life inspired by living beings.
And I—I’m left with questions:
How to bring more living things—
more living beings—to life?
How to invite, in freedom, that life
of the world that lives in each of us 
further into light?