Patches of alto clouds in an otherwise
blue sky, Wednesday, full moon 
rising later tonight.

Wind from the west,
cooling what’s left of the last
couple of days.

At the lake again, 
and there are baby swamphens,
baby coots,
four small yet—Pacific black ducks—
following in the water-wake of their mother.

Under the figs crowd marangana the wood duck
with more yet, 
swans with four large, grey cygnets,
more swamphens with chicks.

Up at the gazebo
a woman with American accent
is excited to tell me about kanamit the welcome swallow.
We talk turtles a while.

She goes, and I look out and spot
half the flock of yesterday’s janjarak
black-winged stilts 
on grey logs.
There are wimbin pink-eared ducks,
as usual lately,
and for the first time confirmed this season,
a couple of small Australasian grebes.
To the east, there’s a couple of kooridoor
egrets in the shallower water,
and a musk duck between me and them.
White ibis fill the bushes nearby.

The wind blows gently across.
The edges of the lake are many shades of green
and lit up here and there in yellow
by flowering paperbarks and other melaleucas.

And suddenly I’m grabbed by this thought again—
that all of this, that everything, 
and everywhere,
seeks ultimately
to be in service of the spirit
of the Earth as a whole,
the spirit of love,
given form.

And that from this service, this becoming,
a new world will be born.

The foundation
for what comes next.