I’m standing at the gazebo again.
There’s the single cygnet with its mother
on the bank behind me, with the father
swimming past to the north.
There are more cygnets with parents 
heading into the melaleucas to the east.
A couple of wimbin pink ears
drift on the water in the wind
to my right.
Some coots dive down nearby
and feed their young.
To the north
there’s an egret
all white and sticklike.

The grass is growing up
below the water.
I notice no turtles.
The bachelor swan is not
in his spot on the bank.
The group of ibis
in the bushes to the east
is fewer in number today.

And it strikes me, pretty clearly,
as it has done more often recently:
the main thing, the main process,
is opening up those organs of perception
we have, but have not yet developed,
of which the physical senses
are just metaphors.