25/7/25
From a cold Perth into the clouds
onto a green wheatbelt, looking down,
becoming wetter-season river gulleys
that take some time
to decipher which way they flow.
This followed by corduroy lines 
of hills and flats
running east to west to east,
the Earth darkening,
the shadows extending.
Broome of the bay and 
port and beach, all that 
blue moving, breathing, in
and out, now 6pm, post sun,
on the depths of the exhale.

In the twilight I hear those
now physically gone
and what they cared for,
including the thunder and lightening,
including the relatively new gift
of the spirit of the Earth as a whole.

26/7/25
Evenings and mornings equally chilly
with winds coming in from the 
further south and east. The sand
of the beach once again firm,
washed clean overnight by
the water now again retreated
to the morning exhale.
Birds dive into it.
People paddle through it.
The red dust and the white sand
colliding. Rocks flooded and buried
now exposed. Crab holes and rolled balls.
Some clouds also signalling rain–-maybe
yesterday’s now gone.

The trees and plants look familiar,
but on closer inspection not-quite known.
At the midday high-water bay, all
turquoise, there’s a dark shape
moving just beyond town beach and mangroves—
a humpback whale going slowly under,
coming up, then moving further south.
A fire north of Cable Beach, dark and 
grey, pushing further north.
Evening sunsets, walking to the 
retracted water’s edges, fish
jumping, sand swallowing feet and quick,
the sunset peeling back from the
eastern horizon like an orange,
revealing orangey yellows, a dash 
of green to the north, indigo
violets on the edges rolling west,
dome-shaped and curved, as the 
water curves on the dark blue
horizon, the moon a bottom-cupped
sliver, left like a treasure, like a seed
above the sun, the rest of it slightly
seen against the backdrop of sky—
the whole scene reflected on the
shining still-wet sand, so it 
seems we’re in this sunset, setting.

There’s a music to the sunset, and actual music
playing, which takes us into evening.
Fireside. Trees in Broome
darkness. Softness. Tending. And more
and more music playing.

27/7/25
I hear the gentle Country.

The softness of this place is still there on
waking; on morning walking through red dirt and
white sanddune and cool south-easterly blowing.
At the ridge above the ocean, the whole scene
is revealed again, another wiped-clean beach,
the water again subtracted to its edges—
but where in the world is the
tide currently high?
The water’s retreating journey traced on the sand from one
pooled line of trench down to the next-lower 
line, then the next, like now-dried moats
surrounding the self-made castle of ocean, like desert lines,
though these will resolve themselves overnight
in shorter tides of time.
A white-bellied sea eagle? flies into the
wind, gliding sideways north along the water’s edge.
I go up another dune and back through he
bush and red dust and white sand dune.

At Coconut Well, Waterbank—a tidal 
channel with limestone sandy
spit hanging over, like a long lip—
dozens of people are floating on the incoming tide
at walking pace, the shallow
channel flooded in less than an hour,
the water flowing north, rounding the
bottom jaw and floating back south,
before it will turn again after I am gone.
Yawuru Conservation Park, agreements
with DPIRD over net fishing—
all of it probably some people’s idea of heaven.

Every wave is a daily tidal movement
in miniature.

Evening sunset shoreline walks through dunes then among the trails of snales
and crabs—both larger, both smaller—lines
within lines. A little ‘forrest of trees’ in the sand—the form of water course retreatings…
The wind now more west than east.
The doming of colours,
the slowly retreating light—
more space to shrink back from up here—
the moon left, hanging, a bright
nail cupping the rest of it seen clearly as grey disc
against the darker sky behind.

After reading the tourist brochures
and visitor guides I can’t help 
thinking all the tourist thing of this country
is built on shaky foundations,
maybe even lies.
And I can’t help see that extending 
also to all the four-wheel driving culture—
travelling for experience extraction?

It’s about water—
from earth to water thinking
(and eventually fire).

It’s about the shift from
extraction ‘tourism’—
what can I take by way of experience–
to caring tourism—
how can I show up with love for Country
(and the love of the spirit of the Earth)
as a healing
as a gift.

28/7/25
Minyirr morning at Redell Beach, 
populated by rocks
both sandstone layerings
and rounded red rocks,
tidal brushings and rain-runoff formings,
like people in the cliff faces.
The red and yellow sands combining, layering,
the red painting the rocks and beach.
Shells stacked upon shells, pinnacles of red rock and 
sand, wearing down, silica deposited on the shining beach.
We read afterwards a place of healing
of spirit children
and rebirth.

Midday sea-breeze turnings.
Story conversations.

Sunset turtle trail sitting on the dunes,
walking all the way to the water still retreating,
one or two small clouds on the horizon,
water-tree trails drain into footprints, red jellyfish pindan-like,
the sky a little less, but golden mango, geen, blue; indigo and violet
advancing like a tide.

On the walk home, sun behind, feeling invited
for the first real time, to notice the plant life.
The long dune vines with purple flowers closing upon night.
The small sun-explosion acacia flowers, and the long
yellow-finger ones.
The one with double leaves on the stem ready to clap
like little cymbals.
The one with bird-like green flowers,
Another with grey leaves as soft as wool.
A love-heart shaped leaf.
A kind of quondong.
Spinifex, tumbleweeds, many others yet.

An invitation to observe minerals first
then Minyirr signage
in the morning.
Plant life in the evening…
Always water…

The mind’s eye…
but also the eye’s mind…

Through the spirit of the Earth
I find others.
I find Country,
saltwater and fresh.
A door(way).
I find myself.
Country can find itself
in me.

29/7/25
Morning walk through dunes to beach.
Saying good morning to walkers and now plants too.
The ocean still going, overnight sand scrubbed clean
again. The wind south-south-east, and less.

Broome sensing, Indigenous publisher, ethical clothing network, venues.
The water, light blue, flooding the bay.
Eagles on the wind.
Seagulls on the umbrella.
Evening sunsets again, amid colours and rockpools and camels.

No one single place comes up to grab 
me here, as in Noongar Country—
instead, larger areas are shown.

How can living Country speak itself in us?

30/7/25
Drive to the top of ‘Dampier Peninsula’—
to Andyaloon/‘One Arm Point’—
Country passing by, places burned too hot
by government most likely, trees dead at the top;
other places close to needing a burn, grasses dead, while on the other side
places burnt cool, green grass coming back…
wattles flowering, yellow pandanas,
eucalypts. In floodplains: paperbarks and grasses. 
In some places it looks like jarrah/marri forrest,
but with burn marks 
almost the whole way.

Hawks, smaller raptors, crows, magpielarks, a kookaburra, two lorikeets? (or parakeets at least), a bull, cows,
flocks of smaller birds cutting across the floodplains.
Tides move in and around the point and islands at
Ardyaloon, the wind howling south easterly (attempting to blow the water back),
some waves stationary—
a turtle pops his head up, gliding past.

Cygnet Bay seems hungry with visitors
for tours and pearls and camping
and lunches.

At Lombardina the church ceiling is lined with paperbark,
the rest is bloodwood and corrugated iron.
There’s a cross painted with images of local animals.
Inside it is dark, sacred.

At Beagle Bay the church is white and pearl-shell shining. 
A single black cockatoo flies over,
a wagtail on the grass.

The sun lengthens all shadows
across the road.

At Coconut Well we rush for the sunset,
crossing mud and limestone cliff, to chase
again the retreating tide, and all those colours.

Globally speaking,
between desert at one extreme
(and saltpans at the extreme of that),
we find the head end (and death),
while at the other, forest and jungle (the limb end and life).
In between: savannah-type places,
in this place created by fire
(the heart—a third path balancing life and death).
This is us, this is Country.
Fire is heart.

Country is alive, and I feel like singing.

I wonder if what was/is here
was waiting for what came
in a form as yet
not alive enough 
to meet it.

31/7/25
Morning walking—birds introduce 
themselves more fully.
Some speak a gutteral, throaty talk
in the bushes, not unlike a 
butcherbird. Smaller ones
speak in higher more silver-like tongues.
Red-flower plant, one with blue-purple
flowers hanging down, like borage.

Minerals, plants, animals…
from earth to water, air and light…

Morning conversations.

Minerals, plants, animals, human beings…
from earth to water,
air/light and fire…

Later bay entrance sunsets.
Red rock and sandstone.
Cruise ships and tides
still retreating.
Sunset colours.
Moon almost half. 
Mars.

Tourists in the caravan park—
within fences
like cages—
and maybe the current avenue of 
tourism is a narrow, confined one.

Europeans have descended
from an Indigenous spiritual 
culture and, no longer being surrounded
by one (in Europe), are in a position where the one they create 
needs to be based on freedom and love…
To be of European culture in this place?
To grow a Western spirituality based 
on freedom and love here?
The gift of being in this place
(for here and elsewhere too?)

1/8/25
Morning east-north-easterly winds not so cold.
All the plants 
on the walk to the beach—
a flock of budgerigars?
Low tide. Warmer today.
Pack and goodbyes.

Country of the spirit of the Earth,
of living beings.
Opening up
Country.
The beings of story.