Pan's Promenade

Pan's Promenade 5:30pm June 27th 2008
Today I was walking along Pan's Promenade, with a vision of Arcadia I could hear Pan at his pipes and the sounds of a goat herd and herder.
This garden does that, makes one dream and want to believe such things.
But the university, however, in its wisdom refers to this path of flowers, exotic trees, leafy lawns and cool shades, jacaranda purples, myrtle pinks, and haunts of youth and their displays and movements of their coming into ripeness, as Sir Charles Court Promenade.
And I know the name they have chosen, of an identity who no doubt gave greatly and unashamedly for the university, deserves to be remembered, but not in this space along this sacred corridor.
His name seems out of place.
His name should adorn the architecture building with its stark communist greys of jail-tone and uniform rigidity it is an apt place to remember a politician.
Names are important.
They have important stories to tell and symbols to uphold and most often we tend to forget this.
Now, I have noticed of late, how the last leaves of the maple or liquid amber are only just hanging on in the lower branches.
Then too periodically the wing tips of the oriental plain continue to glide.
I saw one today that glided straight out above my head for perhaps 30 metres.
Its wing tips were pointed skywards and I could see it was aerodynamically formed. The sight of its flight made me curious as to where the new passenger jets had taken their designs from - was it the sight of one of these plain leaves?
Most of the leaves beyond my window have already left their branches and flown - bare branches are becoming more and more common.
In two weeks I too must fly away, 38.000 ft in the air.
For I am leaving to see The Telc Lepa, The Dup and lazing red trams of Stromovka, and to while away some of my moments with Capek and Kafka.
In a little while I will be flying to the Czech Republic.
This window I will not see again until green shoots have emerged and in their springing have formed new leaves and solar sails in ripening eagerness for the heat and bright light of summer ahead.

What I see

What I hear

Molgaa the beautiful

Molgaa the beautiful 3:50pm June 27th 2008
Right now a thunderstorm is pulsing above the work desk where I have sat these many months. Through thick glass I can hear it roaring like a lion. Sure, I have nothing to compare it with but my memory of when I worked at the Zoo. Nidja maar-moorn yiraar yaaragat goondaar-mai waarngkiny, echoing these dark clouds echoing as if in a cave. This beautiful earth. Tis moments like these that humm and everything stills to listen.

Whadjak boodjaa nidja

Whadjak djoolaa nidja ngoorndiny 5th June 2008 7pm
Yey, ngaalakat boolaarang, kaarakatap Kings Park nyinaalanginy.
Yey baalap Wilderness Society, baalap waarngka nidja Ngadju boodjaa nidja 'Great Western Woodlands' Ngadju-Noongarr-Gaabran boodjaa kaadjaali...
Yey kwodjaa baal Nannup-a-koonyart waarngka: 'Welcome'... Baala mai waangka nidja wadjak boodjaa...yey yarn, nardja? Baal Nannup-a-koonyart-a-waarngk, nidja Karta-wadernang boodjaa... Yey ngientj nidja kaadidjiny...kaa moort-kooraarr boodjaa nidja? Yey ngientj wadj-waarngkiny, koorraar Nyoongaara bardlanginy nidja, ngaadanginy nidja, moonyanginy nidja, koompaniny, gooneriny nidja... Wadjak 'tribe'??? Wadja-Noongar baalap noitj nidja ngoorndiny... Yey nardj nidja derbal yerrigan... brackish water... kaa darp yaaragat nyininy... Baal waarngk: Baalay, aaliwaa... yaaragat nyininy darpmin, baal noonaar ngoorntj, djena nyeraniny, darp boorniny... Noonook djildjit waartiny, ngaadangat nidja norn baal darpal yaaragat nyininy... boordu noonook ngay-yanginy, ngorp baardang-koorliny warra!! Baalay...
Yey nidja boodjaa naarak nyininy plane doolyaa ngaardangat nyininy... yorak, yaaly, djoolaa nidja... boorna-plane baal nidja ngaarniny... plane-doolyaa baala daartj baal ngaarniny. Wadj-djoolaa, boordu ngany djoolaa, nidja daaragaa-djoolaa ngany djoolaa, yaalyabiny boorn-a-daartjabiny Boordu Noongarr baalap waarngkiny, nidja Wadjak boodjaa nidja... Noongar-a-moort nidja ngoorndiny, wadj-a-la, noongar-a-djoolaa yaaly doorntj nidja... Yaarggany 'Yagan' John Forrest djoolaa nidja... yaalyabiny womberabiny noonaar moortabiny Whadjak

Beauty

The Owl

I want to tell you about an owl. 4th June 2008 8:50pm
According to my Frost ancestors from County Clare, Ireland, the owl was their seal.
Personally, I have felt myself drawn to the attributes of the white-tailed black cockatoo, the bird that visits here each year to devour the pine cones.
But the owl once lived and roosted in the giant Jarrah through my window.
When the night was still, and this space was seldom quiet for the screeching of possums (declaring what property was theirs and where unseen boundaries had been crossed).
When the night was still you could hear the owl, and its hoot-hoot would echo across the valley.
But that was years ago.
When I was a child my grandmother lived in Thelma Street, and I remember very vividly the pine plantation at the end of her road.
It seemed dark and foreboding and now here I am, sitting smack in the middle of it, pondering whether the forest that supported the owl will ever return.
Everything is impermanent, nothing remains forever.
So maybe this view in front of my window will one day return to the trees and shrubs that once stood there.
And then, perhaps, even the owl might return, and then the kangaroo and screaming possum.
Imagine that.

How to describe the sun in leaves

2nd June 2008.
Lesson 1.Yey nidja ben baal doolyaa-yaaraagat nyininy - is the light sitting upon the leaf or is it doolyaa-bwoorr nidja nyininy, inside the leaf sitting? And shadows of other leaves behind, above, atop, yarn nidja, nidja noll, doolyaa-nollak-yaaragat-nyininy, nidja keniny don-waariny, dancing and waving, but ngiyang doolyaa-don waariny? Yey ngiyang?? Baal maaman yirra nidja nyininy, maar-boolsbininy - beautiful to speak and to ponder.

Leaves and their shadows

4pm Tusday 2nd of June 2008

It's now three days after the thunder storm and the leaves are deep upon the pathways and hedges.
For the greater part they are only just holding on.
But as their sap and life in their leaves wanes and withdraws they leave the most beautiful colours and this is especially the case right now at 3:57pm this very afternoon the 2nd of June 2008.

Molgaa-Mai Thor's day on Saturday the 31st of May 2008

Today is the first day of June.
Yesterday was a day like no other.
Several giant thunder cells had formed in the northwest on the edge of a cold front. Its cold front arm arced inward like a bow aiming its arrow.
The sky was darkening to the west.
Molgaa, I was thinking, molgaa is the name the Noongar had given what the old Norse or old Greek called Thor or Zeus, and it was they who were speaking.
Actually, I thought it was something bigger than any individual, something beyond the anthromorphic of human form or design.
I thought I could hear in the thunder roar and boom the words of nature, or the language of the earth speaking.
And I watched Molgaa, listened to the sound of the storm coming closer.
First I saw a bright bolt of lightening and then I heard the clap of thunder and in the old language of this land I was thinking: molgaa-mai waarngkiny, ngai-ngaiyanginy, kaarang-abin, aali maarman yaaraagat nyininy...boordu kep boorong bit-bitanginy ngientj nidja kaadidjiny, djooripiny!
Actually, beside the sound of thunder and rain and the sight of the darkening cloud, I spied the movement and sudden alarm of birds.
Outside the front of my parent's house I had noticed a sudden movement of the yellow-winged New Holland honey eaters (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae) flying to the Callistemon (King's Park Special) that sits on the verge of their property.
One bird within was signalling, crying in sharp chirps of alarm and at first I thought it must be the approaching thunderstorm.
But, all of a sudden, I noticed a grey goshawk swoop in.
Its eyes were bright yellow.
It looked my way.
It seemed to hold my stare.
And for the briefest moment I followed it in flight from the veranda where I stood in awe.
How did the birds in the callistemon know it was coming?
How did they know to sing out?
Obviously it was the bird's own telegraph line of communication.
They have their own signal in times of trouble.
I wonder whether they call the same way when they see a cat?
Anyhow, it came, for the better part of Saturday was Thor's day a day of Molgaa-mai this storm and its lightening was wonderous!!
Imagine if we knew how to harness such energy!!
I had read somewhere that if such a bolt was caught it could power a city for a year...or was that a month...?
Anyhow, today, the first day of June, the leaves beyond my window drift between calm and movement.
And as the sun is setting some are turning golden...
And still my mind is full with my memories of yesterday.

To quote that famous Jewish poet Mr Zimmerman:

As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
An' for each an' ev'ry underdog soldier in the night
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

In the city's melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden while the walls were tightening
As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin' rain
Dissolved into the bells of the lightning
Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned an' forsaked
Tolling for the outcast, burnin' constantly at stake
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
An' the unpawned painter behind beyond his rightful time
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For the disrobed faceless forms of no position
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken-for-granted situations
Tolling for the deaf an' blind, tolling for the mute
Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased an' cheated by pursuit
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Even though a cloud's white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An' the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An' for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Starry-eyed an' laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an' we watched with one last look
Spellbound an' swallowed 'til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse
An' for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.