Category Archives: Sun in the Water

Reaping Whirlwinds

There’s a cyclone on its way to town.
It crossed quickly northern Queensland,
the Northern Territory,
northern Western Australia
and went out to sea,
only to reform and now turn south.

They say its speed and the ‘brown oceans’
of inland flooding have kept it going.
The slower it goes, the further south it will be
when it crosses land (its fourth time
to do so in Australia) but, also,
the weaker it will be by then.
Still, it is expected to reach ‘category 4’
before then.
Technically, it seems, no cyclones have crossed land
as far south as Perth
(by then tropical lows, or else staying out at sea).

This follows, at the end of last year,
the first ever cyclone to form
over the Malacca Strait in Indonesia—
the equator not usually providing the right conditions
for cyclones to begin.
It then moved north over Malaysia, Thailand
and into the South China Sea.

The cyclone rarely so far south,
and the cyclone rarely over the equator.
Conditions on Earth have changed.

Considering this, it seems to me
to be a picture of social conditions
in the world today.
Conditions have changed—
unusual, rare, phenomena appear.
The wind blows all sorts of ways.

The expression comes to mind:
“For they have sown the wind,
and shall reap the whirlwind.”
The upheavals of the world today
seem part of a longer journey.
Some things may be inevitable,
but we can still prepare,
and maybe change.

A taste of the greater whirlwind
is upon us.
The question is where is calm,
where is freedom,
where is peace?
Maybe it is to stand upright,
right in its eye—right in its centre.
To stand in this place of stillness
and freedom in ourselves,
and create spaces for others
to do the same.

Preparing for the storm,
in the midst of the storm.
Battening down the hatches—
securing humanity—
for what comes next.

Law and Grace

I am continuing to ponder the thought
of the distinction between
following an external law
and action freely determined
by love.

I was wondering what the word
for the latter might be.

I am told it is grace.

That seems to ring true.

I’m reminded of the way
Jeff Buckley spoke of grace,
both in his album
and his interviews.

Who can say of her or himself
that she or he lives by grace?—
That external laws are no longer necessary?

Perhaps that is not the question,
so much as:
Who has ever felt they have acted
out of a kind of spiritual love?
Out of true freedom?
Or been inspired by the spirit of the Earth,
or of humanity?
Or experienced others doing the same?

Might not the question then be:
How can we shorten the distances
between these moments
of grace?

Might that not be a kind of devotion…
to one another,
to the Earth,
to everything on it?

Australia Day: I Brought the Lake with Me

Today I wake maybe too early, maybe 
a little lightheaded from yesterday.

Too much sun? Too much screen?

I feel a little hollowed out, a little thin.
But I try my best to recall,
to step back in.

It builds slowly,
but it is there, moving through
the consequences of living life
again.

And I take it with me today,
to the lake,
where at the spot I lately
find the essence of the place—
and of the Earth as a whole—
I realise it’s already there
in me.

I brought the depth,
the source,
the spring,
of the lake,
of the Earth
— of a future nation?—
with me
today.

Sunday Worthwhile

Today I leave the usual side and ride my bike
along the southern river shoreline.

I move through the cliffs of Jennalup Blackwall Reach
and arrive at Dyoondalup Point Walter.
I take a seat along the line that runs up
from the water, between the trees,
and inland.

I sit still and wait.
And it arrives—a much more feminine direction
than the side I am used to—
a softer entry onto the Earth.

I sit there, and realise, that this line of land
points more or less directly across to Galbamaanup 
Lake Claremont on the other side,
while looking upriver you can see 
the bushland near the 
Sunset Retirmenet Village in Nedlands,
as well as up to Heathcote 
on this southern side.

***

Late afternoon I’m walking upriver 
towards Mosman Park from Gurungup North Fremantle,
past the hill with the signs of the dingo brothers,
underneath the power lines,
a grove of trees on the left-hand side.

I walk over the little rise and down the 
hill to the small wetland with running water and spring,
down to the beach,
and up the walkway towards the golf course,
Jennalup again on the other side.

***

In the evening I’m listening to the world news, not watching,
as I’ve taken to, and after the headlines,
there’s a story about the children of Sudan—
around 8 million—who aren’t being educated—
“working merely to survive.”

Something breaks,
and something breaks through.

***

Later, I’m contemplating the reason for all this,
all this journeying from duration to now
to whatever comes next.

Whether a planet of love might in fact
be possible.

Is this whole exercise worth it, I wonder.
All for freedom, and the freedom to love.

And then I decide to surrender.
I focus on the word itself.
And another comes with it—forgiveness.

And then breaking breaks through a little more,
onto a field that answers its own questions.

The feeling in me is: yes, it’s worth it.
The feeling in me is:
I must make it worthwhile.

Anything Could Happen

Walking with Katie the last steps before we arrive
at the eastern edge of Galbamaanup Lake Claremont.

Suddenly I feel compelled to say:
“i wonder what new chaos awaits us today—
feels like anything could happen.”

And almost immediately several things begin
to play out: Kadar the musk duck is there,
yet the Pacific black duck with three ducklings—
I start pointing these out to Katie when
bardoongooba the shoveler, janjarak
the black-winged stilt and some yet
fly in towards the centre of the lake
from the slightly-more-northern edges,
as a cacophony of bird sounds starts up.

And then we both see him—a swamp harrier 
flying down over the lake’s centre, big and brown,
tilting towards the western edge. 
He’s pursued by what looks like the small
kanamit welcome swallow and a single wardong crow.

“Look at that little one go!” Katie says.
“And only one crow,” I add.

Other birds start to move—a whole cloud of 
bardoongooba flies low towards the north,
with some yet and ngoonan the grey teal.
The swamp harrier moves further south, out of view,
just as a few more crows arrive on the scene.

Right then I notice kooridor the egret almost
at our feet neat the rushes and reeds, white
and still and silent, sculpture like,
even as the baby yet swim past.
Out on the lake, a grebe chases another 
who ducks under the water.

At the gazebo, a little later, several boodoo 
the bluebill are still there. I point them out
just as kidjibroon the coot strikes one of the 
younger boodoo, pushing him under
and trying to keep him there.
Instinctively I pick up my coffee mug
and am just about to throw it when 
I see the boodoo has made his way out from under
and is swimming away.

A man arrives soon after and starts looking
down into the water. He has earpods,
but I venture anyway: “Seen any turtles lately?”
He takes them out and I repeat my question.

“Well, I usually walk around Gallup
not here.”

We get to talking—he has moved here in recent years
from Melbourne, earlier Boston.
An engineer.

“It must not dry out here usually,” he says,
“juding by the lack of grass in the southeast 
section of the lake, from what I saw last summer.”
I find that an interesting theory.

We all talk water and how to design with it, 
or against it.
“Like in the Netherlands,” Katie says, “where they wouldn’t
have any land if they couldn’t get rid of water.”

He tells us about an old waterfall they got rid of
in Melbourne, the upriver side of which used to be fresh;
the way Boston has been dug up out of the 
bottom of the water.

Towards the end of the conversation I look north,
and there is the harrier again. I point him out.
“Wow,” the man says, and then begins to make 
slight ‘woosh’-ing sounds…as if it’s him
that’s up there gliding.

Love for the World, Love of the World

Cirrus and alto clouds, south-west wind.
The lake is at 1.59 metres—still higher 
than the highest point of 2024’s winter.

At the gazebo I’m watching the water fall,
and the grasses rise.
The swans and ducks and coots are out
off the edges towards 
the centre of the lake again.

There’s one swan—most likely the bachelor
who spent much of springtime on a small
dry spot of land near the gazebo’s bridge.
He’s rocking from side to side on the water, 
the way swans sometimes do when they’re churning things
up below; then he gets his neck down there
and pulls up whatever it is he’s after.

Today there are quite a few boodoo-bluebills
around. One or two (likely mother and young)
are hanging around the bachelor swan
the way coots sometimes do,
feeding on what he leaves behind.
But I’ve never seen boodoo do
this before, diving down into the churned-up
lakebed and grass (where coots wait
only on the surface).

Meanwhile, some other swans are fighting
for territory slightly further east,
wings flapping, necks rolling up and down,
making high-pitched appeals to the sky.

Back with the boodoo, a new one has come in,
but he’s quickly shooed off by the first one.
The feeding swan, however, carries on regardless.

And I’m thinking, sometimes love for the world,
after a point, can carry over, or turn inside out,
and become love of the world—world’s love.

This lasts for a while.

A raptor flies over, small and brown, likely a kestrel.
And the only ones who seem to really notice
are the kanamit welcome swallows,
and maybe a crow or two where he flies byon the eastern side.
Love of the world, close by.

***

And then an adolescent swan, in the growing-dryer spot
the bachelor had previously occupied,
suddenly takes off, black with still some grey, in a flurry
and flapping of wings towards the east,
while its siblings move slowly off the bank further down,
and a group of black-winged stilts flap northward,
as the crunching of the neghbouring school’s
ride-on lawnmower grinds on by.

The Rising of the Deep

Today the lake is at 1.61 metres
on the guage.
The highest it reached in the wettest
point of 2024 was 1.53 metres.
This is the middle of summer—
the end of birak, approaching
bunaru.

The coots have been out in the middle
for some time, diving down,
with the swans on the edges.
Occasionally a diving musk
or bluebill swims across.
Most of the ducks have been 
in the shade of the figs 
of the south end,
happily eating
the falling fruit.

But now, joining the coots in the lake’s centre,
are swans and a growing number of ducks.

It’s not so much that the water is falling down,
as all the grass—that’s had so long (in time)
and so much (in water)—
has been slowly, gradually,
rising up.

So that when you look out on the lake today
there are patches of greeny surfacy ‘stuff’
where it looks kind of shallow
or maybe someplace you could walk across.

But, again, the level has not fallen,
so much as the depths have risen up.

Down to Earth Up to Us

This morning I’m contemplating
the way the human being has been
sculpted over time by a kind
of wording.

And how gradually this wording—
this sculpting—fell
closer and closer to Earth,
closer and closer in us.

And how eventually it will
be us who takes up our place
as sculpting speakers…
having already begun
our first utterances.

Kidjibroon the Coot

Kidjibroon the Eurasian coot—
all black with white nose and beak,
the size of a small hen,
and equipped with sharp web-like toes—
is a feisty bird,
kind of spear-like.

He almost never backs down
from a fight.

He will churn the water with his feet,
or run across it like a dart
into the fray.
He will fluff up his tail
and click his throat in warning.
And, if needed, he will lean back
and stick his claws into the
breast of his opponent—mostly only
other coots or swamphens
meet this latter fate.

He will take on any other coot
and ducks of any size.
And they are happy to fight in pairs.

Sometimes though,
it’s possible to see another side.

From time to time he’ll
hang around maali the swan
who’s dipping down,
pulling up grass
from the bottom of the lake.
The coot will wait and take whatever
the swan leaves behind.

Sometimes he’ll scurry off to the side
when a raptor buzzes over,
like a harrier or hobby or kite.

But the times I’ve seen him get
the biggest fright,
is when something comes at him
from underneath.

The coot is also a kind of diver,
though one that jumps up
in the air, then struggles under,
before re-emerging
as a bubble would,
floating to the top.
All in all he seems too buoyant,
but he doesn’t let that stop him.

There are, however,
proper diving ducks in this lake,
such as kadar the musk duck,
and boodoo the bluebill.

I have seen kadar come up under
a Pacific black duck
and, if I recall right,
under kidjibroon too.

But today I saw it most clearly.
A coot was sitting on the water’s surface
somewhere near the middle of the lake.
Suddenly he jumped up and
started swimming around in circles
while clucking
and preening himself,
seemingly trying
to shake something off—
his fright, most likely.

For some reason it was immediately clear
that something had come up underneath him.
I waited and waited, thinking it must
have been kadar the musk.

I waited some more,
and then—I had to almost squint—
there appeared
a tiny bird—a
grebe—likely Australasian—
looking around
with little eyes—
popping up
from beneath.