Category Archives: Bush Poetics

Grasses

Past the top of the hill, upriver,
for some reason I’m called to notice more
the ground beneath my feet.
Grasses: 
ones that look like
little stalks of dwarf wheat,
still green. 
Others, same height, looking more like
tiny, flat trees with double seed-leaves springing
opposite each other,
like they’ve been flattened in a book.
Then ones like tiny umbrellas with their
fabric ripped off in the wind,
the frame still standing.
And the seeded leftovers of the 
so-called cape-weed, ready for
harvest by galahs and cockatoos.

Many plants part of the one plant,
life-filled and blooming.

The Animals Approach

Wardandi country with nephew Fin and a similar thing is happening to around this time last year. When he first arrived in Australia and we went to Dwellingup, he would say things like, ”Have you ever seen a goanna?” and there would be one. “What about an emu?” and soon after one would appear. Then we went to Dunsborough. “Snakes?” and then we’d see one. “You’d better be careful what you ask next,” I said. The following day, while walking next to the shallows of Geographe Bay, he asked if I’d ever seen a shark up close. We then saw a shovelnose where I’d never seen one before; it was headed one way, so we doubled back and decided to have a quick swim. Fin decided to go further out. He’s adamant the shark brushed his leg.

That was all last year. This time when we go to Wardandi Country he doesn’t say anything. But when we sit and have lunch at Yallingup, a yoornt bobtail/blutongue lizard emerges from out the bushes, across a long stretch of grass and comes right to our feet; I have to erect a kind of wall of thongs and towel to keep him at bay. The seagulls were a little bit more predictable. That evening at Castle Rock carpark quenda the bandicoot appears from near the barbecues and comes within a couple of arm lengths. Shortly after, karda the goanna lazily turns around by the edge of the Meelup trail to look at us, but doesn’t bother to move as we go by. When we put our rafts in the water we see a large baamba stingray moving in the shallows. We ride the wind all the way towards Meelup Beach, pausing at times along the way to lie back and look out north across all the water of the bay. Coming into Meelup we pass through a couple of large white rocks of roosting cormorants—appearing like a kind of gauntlet—with only one or two birds on nearby smaller rocks flying away as we pass. The next day, walking along the same trail, a young yonga kangaroo lifts its head and observes us no more than four metres away. We pause and wait for it to hop off, but he stays put, only moving his ears slightly. And, finally, that evening, goomal the possum arrives on the verandah. We open the door to observe him, and he begins to approach, pink nose in the air.

Kaa Kaa

Sunday morning walk, and at one spot by the edge of a road is a collection of bird droppings—I usually look up to see if anything is sitting there. Today again there is nothing, but slightly along the power line is a kookaburra with something in its mouth. Unusually, though, he looks a little lop sided—all his tail feathers are missing. I tell my nephew and he asks if it was other kookaburras. “Don’t know,” I reply. “Crows maybe. Even djiddy djiddy the wagtail.” But really you never know unless you see it for yourself.

Owl Movements

The single owl sitting in the furthest north tree has now left its nest—no chick was seen. The one furthest south had one chick, but now also nothing left but the nest. The owls in the middle tree are all that remain, and the two chicks are getting big. In fact today I see they’ve now moved branches, away from the nest.

Owls & Flowerings

Today there are owls left in only one tree. And there are four of them. Four tawny fromouths. Two adults and two chicks. They stand together in one clump. 

Also today are a few plants flowering: white maleleucas, pink gums, yellow eucalypts. 

And a few days later, nephew Fin says something along the lines of: “Those owl chicks—at first, when they were small, they were like little buds, and now that they’re bigger, they’re like little flowerings.”

On talking about this later, my wife insists the process should be called “Flowlering.”

Ideas of Landscape

The landscape is an ‘organism’ with different ‘organs’ (somewhat like a healthy compost).

If a counterpicture is needed for extractive mining and agriculture, maybe we could be ‘putting something back in the ground’.

The human being is in the landscape in many ways, including a metabolic system underground, head above ground, and rhythmic system in the soil between.

There are rivers between WA and India severed by the splitting up of Gondwana. 

Some shorelines of Whadjuk Country on the Swan Coastal Plain: the Yilgarn Craton to the east (water from runoff), ocean to the west (water from sea), plus water underground. 

Watching Owls Watching

There’s been a bit more movement amongst the owls these last few days at the lake. I’ve seen two tawny frogmouths sitting in each of two separate trees, one nest a little larger than the other. When standing under them, they seem a little less reluctant to move, and so show us the side of their head, then look down again. Today there are many dogs running around under them—every day must be somewhat the same. One owl can’t be more than a couple of metres above them. I wonder what the owls think of them, these four-legged creatures fetching balls and sticks and frisbees for those who walk on two legs beside them, while the owls are all the while sitting, waiting, watching. 

In addition to dogs and humans there are also magpies, also wattle birds, also crows, and other birds. I’ve heard stories of it not always being so amicable—stories of crows attacking owls—but as far as I can see here, the magpies and others—often so territorial—seem happy to let the frogmouths sit on their branches all djilba or kambarang—maybe also keeping one eye on them—sitting, sitting, in the sun and storms and winds and rain and waiting.

Lying Down in Minerals

On the coast is more limestone and sand; moving gradually through sand to more mud and clay in the wetter lands between ocean and hills; moving gradually from mud and clay to more granite in the hills and beyond. Like a human being lying down, with head at the limestone and sandy ocean, heart and chest in the muddy wetlands and riverways of clay, feet at the willful granite of rising hills.