Walking Bold Park with nephew 
and I’m inviting him to 
come up with new names for things.

Things like spiders high in trees,
Zamia palms/jiragee,
Zamia resin or sap, tuart trees,
Banksia cones, pine cones,
pine trees,
bayern or coastal pigface,
magpies and more.

I invite him to look at the thing 
for as long as is needed
in order to create an exact replica
in the mind.
Then once that mental image is there,
to let it go, and stay only with the
feeling of the thing that remains,
lingering a while.

Then to let go of that feeling of pine, or zamia resin, 
or koolbardie the magpie, go,
and see what name, if any, arises 
in the will.

He notes, as I do,
that it is easy to let
an associative name arise—what something
may look like is especially tempting 
for us both. 

We stumble through each.
And then I say the existing name—
in English, Noongar if I have it.
Standing in front of it,
or holding it in our hands.

“Spider.”
“Zamia…jiragee.”
“Resin.”
“Tuart.”
“Banksia…bullkarla”
“Pine.”
“Cone.”
“Coastal pigcafe…bayern.” 
“Magpie…koolbardie.”

These are the single words, I realise,
of a longer story—nouns, names.
Nouns need adjectives, verbs, adverbs.
Words need sentences, paragraphs,
stories, poems.

Whether rock, plant, animal, human…
landscapes and ecosystems. All names.

Moving from the earth of it, to the water, 
air and fire.

I try to join the names of Bold Park
and Kings Park—-to go there in looking
and in naming…(re)creating,
(re)newing.

The naming of nature
and the nature of naming.

By the edge of the fire
is a lavender bush
slightly lit
slightly dark.

How much do we usually see things?

The flames and coals
light up the closest sides—
grey-green stems and purple flowers.

I say it: “Lavender.”

Something of me calming already.

The fire helps cut
right to it.

“Lavender.”

Warm, yet calm,
like slowly glowing
embers.

Lavender. 

Sitting around the fire with nephew—
Saturday night fire.

It burns warm on a warm night,
little wind.

The first sticks were taken 
from dead limbs
of a nearby bottlebrush.
The bigger chunks 
are from jarrah.

Flames turn to glowing coals 
in the darkness.

I look all the way into its fiery core,
then let the fiery core
of the word
out of my mouth:
“Fire.”

And the warmth of the Earth descends,
fills, 
inhabits it;
as the word inhabits the mouth
and the space beyond it;
as the physical fire
inhabits the place in front of us;
as the core of it,
meeting the core of the name,
fills the heart
and limbs,
there newly (re)created,
newly alive.

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.