Within the human being 
the world is restored.
The depth of the name
meets the depth
of the named.

From this the world is
re-born.

Sky.
Ocean.
Sun.
Water. Kep. Eau. Aqua.

Karak. The red-tailed black cockatoo.

Only the human being can name things.
Only the human being
can remake the world.

There are flocks of karak
the red-tailed black cockatoo
circling the city.

There are flocks of bandiny
the black, white and yellow striped
New Holland honeyeater
chirping in frontyard trees.

Each evening there is a flock of planets
left behind by the Sun—
all of them visible
above the horizon.

At the lake 
there is one Pacific
black duck
left behind,
hardly moving
from a small pond 
on the eastern side.
He is joined by swamphens,
white ibis,
and one white-faced heron.
Wardong the crow sits
on the fence
and eats little red 
saltbush berries.

There is wise guidance
to the flocking birds—
their ‘I’ hovers above
each species,
directing them where to fly.

There is wise guidance
to each planet—
though calculable in their movements
they send down their influences still.

There is wise guidance
to the lake
coming from deep within the Earth.

And there is wise guidance to the Earth,
filled with multiplicity of being.
All of it permeated now
by the Sun that stepped down;
by the one Sun that, 
into it,
set.

Waxing crescent early March.
Two more Moons until Easter.

Today, all the planets are in the evening sky,
with Mercury, Saturn and Venus
closely following the Sun;
Jupiter around mid sky,
and Mars bringing up the tail.

This evening the Moon has joined them,
just above the planets
closest to the Sun—
between them and Jupiter,
and a little higher.

The now-set Sun shines off
the Moon’s lower left-hand side,
just a sliver,
and bounces down to Earth.
The rest of it—
the Moon’s dark round disc—
absorbs that deeper light
from the Sun.

The surface light
holds the deeper light.

Like the Mother
holds the Son.

There is another sun
rising
out of
the centre of the Earth.

It rises to all sides.

It rises
with the human being.

What role for those
who can experience 
freedom
and the truth of this?

Can it be anything more
than to merely report
well and truly
of what one has seen?

In doing any more than this
we trespass upon
the freedom
of others 
to determine
for themselves
their own 
course of action.

How do I, in truth,
report of freedom
and in so doing
leave you free?

***

It is up to each of us
to make ourselves free,
but we can support one another
in this striving.

Every place 
and all that inspires it
now seeks to be
in service of the 
spirit of the Earth
as a whole.

But it is up to human beings
to recognise this,
and say 
‘I am that’— 
to say ‘the spirit
of the Earth
lives in me.’

In so doing,
evil can also be
transformed
to the good—
can be embodied
in its rightful place.

I went back to a beach today
that I swam at almost daily 
for 10 years.

So I know it fairly well.
But I hadn’t been there much
for the last 20 years
or so.

I was shocked today
to see much of it
had washed away.
A large cliff face greeted me 
almost at the end of the steps.

People were hunkered up
against a fenceline
on the sand.

I looked down to the teahouse
and the water was lapping
at the concrete stairs.

The tide was only half way
between high and low,
and it was rising.

Gradually, slowly,
the Earth is being eaten away.

But where do things go 
when they disappear,
when they’re ‘extinct’?

Something new is growing, though,
in the midst of this.

It grows in the Earth’s
invisible foundations,
and in our own.

And it will meet there
all those old friends
we might otherwise 
have lost.

After not being there yesterday,
the janjarak black-winged stilts
have come back to the lake.

There are seven standing on a dead log
towards the lake’s drying centre—
one with wings a lighter grey—
an adolescent still,
most likely.

Death does not roll on 
in a linear way.
Life returns amidst it.

As essential life is freed up
by it.

The Earth itself will 
eventually
go this way.

The lake has dropped below the measurement gauge—
its base sits discoloured and dry.

The remaining water is shallow
and the colour of coffee or, more precisely, cappuccino.

Five days ago, marangana the wood duck was on the edges,
now he’s gone; 
janjarak the black winged stilt was also here,
now gone.

Up till yesterday there were two adolescent swans—
the last of the young this season.
I was beginning to wonder if their wings would be strong enough
to carry them out before the water dried up.
Today they too are gone.

By the water, that leaves kwirlam the swamphen
who will not go.
Plus about a dozen black ducks, some in the water,
some on logs, some wading the mud on the edges.
There might be a grey teal or two among them.

Kanamit the welcome swallow flitters above from time to time.
Manatj the corella lands on dead branches
and climbs down to the water.

Then there are the other usual suspects.

But mostly we’re headed to dryness,
departure and death.

Though what’s on the other side of that—
beyond just seasons?

The spirit of this place—any place—
still exists. 
And seeks to serve—
the whole, the Earth…
and what comes next.

Sunday morning Leighton Beach
and I’ve managed to find a spot to myself
albeit only for a while.
Soon swimmers come close
or cut across,
either further out
or right where I stand.

I go under
and open my eyes.
It’s different than the night before
when, facing west
at sunset,
through the water I
saw light.

Now it’s more limestone cloudy.

I stay a while longer
as the swimmers continue on.
And then, from the south, also in a line,
approaches midi the pied cormorant.
He seems to have no intention
of passing around or over or under me.
He just keeps on paddling.
We lock eyes.
The water carries him slightly inland of me,
but close enough to touch
as he moves by,
all black and white,
blue eye area,
yellow and pink face,
top beak-end hooked over the bottom.

He keeps his eye on me for a couple more metres
then puts his head under to look for fish.

Gradually he is gone.

Many things exist and approach
in the watery substance
of the world.
What do we see there?
What of what we see
should we seek to become?

***

People talk of light in the dark.
Maybe we should begin to speak
of light 
in the water—
of a watery kind of Sun.