A Green Enchantment in the Spring of 2007

Written in the Spring of September 2007

The letter below I wrote to a Noongar linguist, or is that a linguist of the Noongar language..? Bob Howard of Albany has worked and lived enchanted and entranced by the Noongar of the lower south coast for so long - he is now 'owned' as one of them. We catch up when ever I am in Albany and the letter below relates to one of his posts. It was written in spring, in September when the branches beyond my window were in bud and beginning their movements beyond. I begin by describing one of his posts and what, I suspect, he looks out upon (Albany's King George Sound) each day, and then I detail what I see through my window, written both in English and in Noongar mai:

Bob,

These threads of cloud look like the coils of an unfolding snake, or the spiral of a snail's shell or a giant twirling willy-willy bearing down - I know you're a linguist and a lover of the Noongar tongue, and one wonders what things made up of words and sounds must entertain you.

Your description of the winds beyond your window and the movement of tides and lunar entanglements articulate something of great beauty.

From my window, I sometimes peer from a room with a view. The plain trees beyond the night Jasmin hedge stand semi-bare covered in emerald green shoots of spring. Closer to the window, an evergreen coral tree stands immobile, leaf like hands wait to embrace, or applaud the wind.

My window sometimes moves with the foray of birdlife, mainly the high energy marauding rainbow lorikeet. Occasionally, magpies navigate their way through the green beyond, seemingly oblivious to my watching.

And, like you, I am searching for the billion plus words of Noongar mai description - calm, how does one describe an airless, windless calm - maar-birt - wind without - perhaps. Kedalak, I know this word of Cliff's describes this time of dusk at 6.04pm.

And the sun - ngaalaa ngaarngk, baalaa nookert ngoorndiny, wodern daarabiny - yeyi daabakarn baalaa dirrn yaarragata yaarkiny, boordu baalaa djindang boolaarang yaarkaalanginy - nyarni-waarngkiny! Whispering their way into being, these stars, above our heads, beyond the heads of clouds even and beyond our earth, this beautiful place, blue orb of wonder, now in peril.

Minditjabiny yarn nidja? How is it possible that such things could come into being? Nyittiyang booy borlaa-boolsbininy minditj nyanginy, nirnamin djoolanginy - like a leech, I suspect, and yet still she spins, twirling like the willy willy, spiralling enchanting, this earth - this beautiful being, life giver, regardless of our folly - and meanwhile, there are those like you who map the movements of the wind, who speak so insightful of the moon and whisper so wise to the movements of the tide - well done, do not stop - you give us hope!

Tim McCabe
6:35 PM