Morning wakeups of kookaburras
flying into closed windows,
over and over again—maybe five times.

Later in the morning
chunyart the 28 is perched
on the edge of the bird bath
before jumping
without hesitation right into it.
He flaps and bathes himself
like an old pro—
like a duck—
shooing off another 28
when he approaches.
And when he’s had enough,
he flaps up onto a nearby tree branch
to dry out.

I suspect a nearby bandiny New Holland 
honeyeater has also had a drink.
He perches on nearby red-flowering grevillea
and feeds another bandiny when it approaches.

The other chunyart stands on the edge
of the bath, drops his head to drink
but doesn’t jump in.

There is a family of red-winged fairy wrens—
only the male of which is coloured 
with red wings and blue head—
hopping on the grass and bushes nearby.

A scarlet robin sits, all red-breasted, 
in the branch of a bottlebrush.

And there are other small birds of dark-grey wings, 
black eyebrows and whiter breast;
plus some even smaller birds like 
tiny silvereyes.

They come on like a flurry
all together
in the morning—
all at the same time,
while now it is quiet.

Perhaps it’s also the usual time 
that the cleaner might come
and gather up any rubbish,
potentially dropping food.
Perhaps not.

In any case,
all it takes 
is a little sitting outside,
a preparedness
to look up from the
screens of life,
and see what arrives—
to see what flies in,
what lands,
and becomes,
inside.

Back where the Marbeelup Chapman Brook
meets the Joojilyup Blackwood River.
There are four big marris and a big
peppermint. The sun is out
and I can faintly see small fish in the
shallows, maybe perch, maybe bream.

Chunyart the 28 escorted me in. 
Karak the red-tailed cockatoo lines
the marri trees above,
screeching out to one another.
Some white tails flew over
on the driving here.

I walk further up-brook along 
the Marbeelup, past the boat launch,
past the barbecues and campground,
along the water’s edge. 
There are signs about the native veg-
etation. There is sword sedge, I think.

And as I come around one corner
there is a long black line on the trail—
around one metre long, with yellow underbelly,
body a bit thicker than a thumb.
I pause—a few meters off—and watch 
as he slithers into the bushes by
the side of the path.

All of this reveals itself in the 
light of blue-morning day, 
the first clear sky in a week or more.
But it reveals its essence
to the observing mind
and finds its fullness
in relation to the widths
and depths
of the human being and the earth
found there.

On the banks of the Joojilyup Blackwood again
near its mouth in Tallinup Augusta.

We’re on another work call 
and I’m looking out the window
at all the water
rushing in between the shore
and a sand bar 
near the river’s centre.

There are people on stand-up paddle boards,
dogs, kids—many of them swimming across the current 
to stand on the bar mid-river.

Limestone lines the other bank, far over.
The ospreys are still in the Norfolk pines.

Part way through the call things shift
from the pushing of some kind of program
to an opening of doors
to all those who feel called
to be there.

Something switches,
inverts. The guiding spirit
of the work comes rushing 
in, through, between…
like a tide that pauses, 
breathes, 
and turns.

It’s so-called Australia day again
and maybe we’re doing a retake
on some of the cliches of the day.

In the morning we head to the beach—
Hamelin Bay—
for a swim, 
but with stingrays.

Then it’s into the karri forest
for a spot of four-wheel driving,
though we take a two-wheel drive
and spend all our time looking
up at the mighty trees
and observing the consequences
of fire, and of no-fire.

Back home after, for a barbecue,
of regenerative eggs, 
sourdough, vegetarian patties,
organic tomatoes, onions, 
capsicum, zucchine and even 
a spot of bok choi.

Later, we take the water craft
down to the river,
though here there’s no jet
skis, just our inflatible kayaks,
spending our time 
finding red-winged fairy wrens
and fantails
amongst the bushes 
by the side of the Marbeelup
Chapman Brook,
then following it down
to where it flows into the
Djudjulyup Blackwood River.

There are some big marri trees
on the upriver side,
and a big peppermint.
This is a large meeting of waters
on this large country.

It is big country, deep country,
flowing through—
as gift—
the country 
of human beings
this day, 
transfigured,
transformed,
and now—
as gift—
back out again.

Back at the mouth of the river,
with Katie this time.
Saturday morning
southerly and sun. 

I put down a blanket and
flick a disgarded prawn head—
likely left by a fisherman—
into the water.

There is the brown water,
the limestone on the bank 
of the other side,
the small peppermints,
the coastal daisybush,
the fan flowers.

On the water arrives yet
the Pacific black duck.
I say hello.
He steps out of the water
and onto the shore in front of us.
He finds another prawn head 
I must have missed—
all hard head and shell—
and gulps it down.
Another piece, all shell,
he leaves behind.

I stand and he slides back 
into the water.
I look upriver. Wind seems
to blow in from the mouth and from 
upriver at the same time,
as the water bends here almost 90 degrees.

I spot the limestone
of what lies further up there—
what lives further up there,
further in here,
millenia wide,
millenia deep,
meeting here,
in the cave of my self,
by grace,
something of the future light—
the light of the earth,
of human beings—
seeking to illuminate all.

We’re in a bath in the middle of the forrest
and I’m telling Katie 
about some of the nature of this writing
and the writing of this nature.

Any worthwhile insight
comes as a gift.
And anything worthwhile
in the writing of it
is given as a gift
back to from where it came.

We paddle up the Marbeelup Chapman Brook
and out into the Djujulyup Blackwood and
head upriver. It is calm and cloudy
and humid-hot and quiet.

Peppermints hang out
over the water, light green
against the rest of the forest
all darker green marri and jarrah and karri
and I assume blackbutt,
maybe other eucalypts.
There are tuarts all grey-green
and huge, further upriver;
malaleucas too.

In the water we have to dodge
the odd fallen tree.
“How long do you think it takes 
a log to decompose in the water?”
Katie asks.

There are one or two pied cormorants
shifting positions on the dry parts
of fallen logs.

Towards the end of our paddles
it starts raining softly—warm
rain spun inland by a cyclone 
further north, off the coast. 
The drops hit slowly,
deliberately.
“Let’s see if we can avoid them.”
But we don’t need to. It is
warm, and still, and we are 
happy to sit in the boat
and watch the way the rain
falls into water with a round
splash—the whole surface 
of the river drumming to life 
as if little crickets or frogs were splashing.
It is more an experience 
of water rising up from specific spots
than of water falling down…

….here, where rivers meet,
where currents meet,
where spiritual streams
and streams of time
do meet.

Hamelin Bay, bottom end of Wardandi Country.
It’s morning and people are crowded by
the remains of the old jetty.
They stand in the water,
just beyond the small boat ramp,
for a look at or photo of 
the local stingrays.

We begin walking that way 
and I notice in the water
the slow moving
form—like a kind of cloud
shadow—of one of the large rays.
It glides slowly, lazily, rhythmically
along; its outer edges rolling across
the rolling waves of the shoreline.
He’s in the shallows, 
and probably looking for food
in the churned-up sand.

We turn before we reach the crowd,
having seen what we have already seen. 
And then we see him again, all of us
headed the other way now,
and watch him go as we pass.
Coming towards him we see another one,
smaller, its wing tips rising up 
out of the water. Then the larger one is carried 
by a wave 
into the even-more shallows, his wings also coming
up and out of the water.

In this old and crumbled-down place of 
limestone, cracked and deathlike,
rises up this source of movement and life,
attracting people towards it. 
It has a place in the summer and other
journeys of so many,
fitting with some higher logic
and lawfulness into the sourcing
of a larger whole.

Another point at which the past is present
and from which a new future 
can begin.

Down here, bottom of Wardandi country,
where the Southern Ocean meets
the Indian, and the Djudjilyup Blackwood
flows out to meet them.

We’re sitting in our car on the shoreline
taking a work call
about landscape restoration.

But outside the water is flowing
on the high, incoming tide
and southerly wind,
as two dolphins make their way
upriver by the edge of the tour boat,
and an osprey screeches from the top
of a Norfolk pine above us.

Part way through a sentence 
I have to stop and look out the window
when I notice a splash 
and see the osprey coming up
from the water
with a fish in its claws.

The place comes into my awareness,
comes into the call,
which comes into my awareness
and back into the place.

Landscapes and humans and restoration
and humans and landscapes.

I have been away for a week
and come back to find
Galbamaanup Lake Claremont
below a metre
on the gauge.

The water is a muddy
colour
and the scent is 
of rich and watery worlds
drying slowly out.

There are the teals and black ducks still,
black winged stilts,
a white-faced heron;
the swamphens won’t go far;
a couple of swans with later-season young 
still not fully coloured—
I wonder if there will be enough water
for them to take off 
when their wings are strong enough.

I hear the sound of the pied 
butcherbird. 
Manatj is there in a flock
in the figs;
and they’re all taking off 
as a raptor—
probably kestrel—
flies by overhead,
many of the other birds moving in 
one contraction
towards the lake’s centre.

How alive this place is,
even as it nears (watery) death;
the bird life is just 
one expression of this.

It reaches out to me,
and I welcome and observe it,
holding it 
within the whole.

It is a great teacher,
this place—
a place of knowledge.

I try to give back as 
much as I can,
by listening,
by holding it
with the 
whole of the Earth,
the whole of the
human being.