Final morning of the most recent trip
down south with relatives.

The air is still. There are clouds
and rain.
Which means there is the chance 
of rainbows.
And there it is, to the West,
reflecting the eastern horizon
rainbow that brought us here
on the evening we left.

In the water I dodge jellyfish,
almost transparent,
but relatively easily seen,
their long legs trailing,
water-like in the water.

As we are Earth-like
on the Earth.

Katie and I are back at Marbeelup and Joojilyup—
Chapman Brook and the Blackwood
intersection,
this time with my American
cousin-brother.

As usual, we head up the Marbeelup Chapman
a way—as far as our two-person kayak
with take the three of us.

Then we turn back,
and paddle out beyond the 
point of the waters’ meeting,
out into the widths
of the Blackwood.

Earlier, we read the signs again
about the significance of this place.
The way the Blackwood flows
all the way from Mulga’s Cave;
its relation to the rocks south of 
Canal Rocks.

And now, out on the water, 
we read the signs again:
Karris, peppermints, a grove of tuarts,
marris, jarrahs. farmland behind.
A spot for camping. 
Cormorants.
The sound of karak the red-tailed
black cockatoo.

We pause and talk and go quiet
and drift.

Waters meeting waters—
out there,
in us.

We’re at the large red pyramid
slabs of Canal Rocks.

The water made all the more blue
by their redness; their redness made all the moreso
by the calm blue of the harboury bay.

The water rushes in between the rocks, 
under the bridge.

I roll the word over in my mind
and mouth.
“Rocks.”
I make a space for the depths of the 
rocks in front of me,
and the depth of the word 
within me.
“Rocks.”

And soon they begin to grow
around me,
within me.
A whole new rock-filled ground to stand on,
immaterial, though sure none-the-less.

“Rocks.”

The heart of the Earth 
reaching down
and rising up to meet…

Rocks.

We walk with the American family
east to Castle Rock. 
On the way I name wattle,
peppermint/wanil, 
yonga/kangaroo,
ocean/wardan,
quenda.

The wind blows into our faces,
but we shelter behind the rock,
and the water is still.
The sculpted leaves of the wattle,
waiting for yellow flowers,
the weeping and oily scent of the wanil
peppermint.
Yonga pauses from his eating, close by,
and watches us, before hopping off.
The ocean goes and goes,
whipped up by the morning wind.
Quenda a little thing, like another
face of the Australian mammal archetype.

All these, like everything else,
named 
by human beings,
as the Earth
and we too are named…
Love of the Earth 
allowing this.

On one level the river mouth
is not open—a sand bar across its flow
into the ocean;
on another level it is open wide.

My cousin and I inflate our kayak
and paddle upriver,
turning as the river turns,
headed for the mouth
of the cave,
passing by those
faces in the limestone,
paddling on.

There is wind.
There is glass.
There are rising fish.
There are paperbarks.

The water is clear;
the bottom brown.

We sit and drift.
Wooditchup.
The cave and mouth
engulf us
without us stepping foot ashore.

Then the sound of an osprey.
The landing of another.
The sighting of another
sitting silently.
More.

The wind comes up from the south,
but swirls a little down here.
As it all swirls,
blowing first from outside in
but then from inside out;
first from one point to another,
then from a central,
limitless source
to everywhere,
though quiet,
forceful,
seen in stillness—
as people
cross from one side
of a river
to another.

We drive the road
by the limestone caves
down towards Bornup forrest
and the karri trees.

We drive in a bit, then walk 
a quiet backroad
of orange-brown dirt
and limestone teeth
poking up at times.

Katie and I walked this same
stretch last summer,
drier.

The karris stand as straight as ever,
their bark having peeled off, white
already beneath, leafed beardings up the trunks
or lignotubers sprouting up below,
following the fire of a couple of years ago.

Beneath them, on the forrest floor,
mostly hazels, but also bracken ferns.
Not many birds.

At one point I stop and ponder a moment,
we here—Americans. Australians—
human beings as namers, naming all these things.
Old names, like karris.
I try to find the depth
of the being of the thing in front of me,
then try to match it to the depth of the name
that rises up from within.
Karri.
And I say it out loud.
“Karri.”
And the world is restored.

And from this,
something is
and can be 
made.

So often I hear his song
at home,
at the lake,
even down here
in Quindalup.

I don’t recall it ever being so common—
maybe I was deaf to him before,
maybe we now find ourselves
drawn to the same places.

And though I hear him often,
I don’t usually see him,
as if he’s content to give
voice to the whole landscape
though the single point
of focus and body
is not required to be seen.

But today, he appears not just
nearby on branch of tree,
but on our breakfast table. 
He stands on the far edge, then hops around,
all black and white, though smaller
than a magpie,
more muscular than a lark,
more rounded than a wattlebird,
larger than honeyeaters,
black hooded, curious.

There is no food.
There is no song.

But we stay together like
that, a little while,
the grey butcherbird and me,
knowing what he is capable of,
knowing the way he experiences
and expresses this place,
revealing the small form
that gives voice to it.

The whole in part,
condensed.

We walk the start of the Meelup Trail
for a taste before 
the sun sets and moon begins
to rise.

It’s an eclipse already
somewhere just below the horizon—
a thin line of clouds
just above it.

We drive in a mad
lunar ticking rush
to Meelup Beach
and arrive to a full carpark
and the sound
of crowds cheering.

The top of the orange 
red moon is peeking through the 
top of the horizon line
of clouds.
And then more of it,
and more, 
and more,
until it is fully up, and round 
and glowing more golden.

There are kangaroos eating 
on the grass in front of us.
There are crowds of people 
all around.

We walk down to the beach
and three of us jump in.
The water is still and 
relatively warm.

A group of people
listen to music at the western end
of the beach in 
silent disco mode.

We get out and walk back
towards the car. The moon
has become lighter and lighter,
moving behind, between, 
through clouds—
a ‘staircase’ appearing
at times on the ocean below.

Sun, earth, moon
all in a row.
Samesized,
the whole of it—
the Earth,
human beings—
living, alive.

My American relatives are here.
They drive behind us 
on the freeway towards 
Wardandi Country—Dunsborough.
Thursday evening mid March
and it’s raining.

The sky is grey in places,
clear in others.
The sun bursts through
and a rainbow lights up
to the east—low, clear—
a second one on its shoulder.

There are boodalung pelicans up there,
there are waalitch eagles,
there are kestrels.
We cross bridges 
across waterways
as the rain comes and goes.
We cross countries.

The sun goes behind clouds,
then bursts out again,
and the eucalypts glow
a shimmering gold.

The place is alive.
The world is alive.
Everything seen
and waiting to be seen.

We listen to Australian music
and look out on Australian Country.
There is no separation.
I am out there with it,
in the rain, in the rainbow,
in the birds
and roads 
and creek crossings.
In the rivers
and trees and sunlight 
leaves. 
In the music of it.
And I am grateful.

Behind us—my American relatives,
with their own connections to this place.

Today at the lake the water levels are low.
It looks like there are salt remnants
on the drying mud
like there hasn’t been
in previous years.

I only see kwirlam the swamphen,
nyalkaniny the white ibis,
and wayan the white-faced heron
down on the dry bed.
Wardong the crow and
djiddy djiddy the wagtail
are also busy on the edges.
Kaa Kaa the kookaburra
swoops wardong at one point.

There is a roof of soft alto stratus, 
and a gentle south westerly blows,
keeping the whole morning cooler.

I go to my usual spot on the east side.
There are two people sitting under 
the eucalypt on the bench.
They’re talking about the patriarchy
and societal values.
I imagine them late teens, early twenties,
uni students maybe.
But when I walk on I see that the boy
is maybe 18, the girl maybe 13.

I walk to the southern jetty and sit
under the figs.
To the north, the lake is all grass.
The sound of lorikeets fills the sky,
like they tend to do more at sunset
and sunrise.

I say the name of the lake in Noongar
and in English.
I see what effect that has—
of bringing the depths of the thing 
into relation with the depths of the name—
what effect it has in me.

(I suppose that the named lake will live on 
after the lake itself has 
dried up completely 
into nothing physical left.
It will all be a higher water element then.)

We name and so (re)make the world,
as the Earth itself is filled 
by what lives and weaves 
in its true name.

And so we come to know and (re)make places
by what they are, but also by 
what they are 
now that the Earth itself
has been renamed.