Gondwana Forest
Last winter I took a train into Australia’s Blue Mountains. Eucalyptus forests stretched out in every direction around me and the sight and the smell of it made me cry. That night, alone on the land, I was listening to many bird voices that were completely new and strange to me. This vast continent was bringing me in a state of awe. For a week long I got to stay in a little cabin in the bush, a piece of subtropical rainforest friends of mine are living with in the most beautiful way. I felt I didn’t know the rules of the land I was on and felt a lot of respect for what seemed like the dark twin of clearwatered and gentle Aotearoa New Zealand I had just come from. What struck me most of all was the sense of being in an ancient place. I never experienced the Earth in all its countless years in this way before.
This poem is for Aussie and all the wisdom it holds. May the right amount of rain come down and may we remember our relationship to the sacred element fire.
GONDWANA FOREST
They come marching towards you
the creatures of Gondwana forest
they’ll drop a limb to reach you
if they have to
the bird that cries like a baby
the leeches crawling in the creek
those who fly silently at dusk
the two-legged ones
speaking of time before time
his rugged hand caressing
the rippled rock
a puzzle piece of
the tectonic plate of
his heart
pulling the vines
out of the hearth
unveiling the vilest
of thoughts
but some of this water
refuses to turn clean
you might as well
let the lyrebird
lick you clean
touch the bottom of
the billabong
disappear in
the crocodile-coloured water
the breath that escapes
your mouth
forms two bubbles
on the surface
bursting open
when they touch
the land & the people
the land & the people
the land & the people
(March 2019)