It’s warm this morning at the lake,
with a strong easterly blowing in.
I’m standing at the eastern edge
watching a couple of large,
grey cygnets paddle in front
of their mother.
There are coots in the foreground
among the reeds;
pink-ears on the other side;
two lots of two janjarak
black-winged stilts fly by,
barking, searching for a 
spot of dry bank to the south.

The mood is quiet,
expectant. The kind of mood
a raptor could drop into.

And suddenly there he is, 
all large and rusty orange,
wheeling over the far bank—
a swamp harrier most likely—
coots scurrying under bushes
shrieking; haw rarely
they run in fear.

He glides along low over the bank,
then back along, then across to the eastern side,
out of view, no crows or koolbardie magpies
in chase.

That maybe explains also the janjarak
and their barking, their moving.

Funny when you can begin to see the linking
threads of a place—
words turning into sentences, stories.
Funny when the mood begins to come through
what you can read.
Funny when that mood is filled 
with raptors,
with meaning.