Bob and the song of the Magpie

I heard him singing 22nd September 2008

I heard the koolbardi magpie singing several mornings ago.
I heard it when it was still dark at about 3am.
I heard it above the wind and its tune was melodic, beautiful.
It sings, say old Noongar yarns, it sings for its moyer or nephew the goanna the karda or old yurrn the bobtail who it knows still sleeps in the warmth of its burrow in the earth.
It sings to tell its nephew that spring and the warmth of summer is approaching and that sometime soon it should think to move into the shades of the trees that surround it.
Now I want to tell you about a friend who passed away recently.
I only heard the news yesterday by means of a letter to this blog.
I know now that the koolbardi sings for such people as my friend Bob.
Is there life after death?
Well the magpie singing in the knowledge of spring seems to think so.
Bob would have known that yarn, as he knew many of the Noongar yarns of the lower southwest.
It seem strange that he has passed.
I dare not believe it.
I sat with him at the Charlie Gardener Hospice recently and whilst the cancer in his jaw had made it difficult for him to speak and eat he was his usual joy-filled self. His warmth was contagious, it was easy to feel relaxed and inspired in his company. His passion was for the Noongar of the lower south west.
There is a statue dedicated to Mokare on Albany's main street, but you know a similar one should stand nearby dedicated to Bob...
His work with the southcoast Noongar was often a thankless and unrecognised task.
Of course he never did the work he did for recognition, he was just moved by the wonders that such knowledge brought him.
Bob and I frequently met at his favourite cafe in Albany where we discussed all matter of facts and details and insights into the Noongar language and our concerns and specifically his for his Noongar community.
I say HIS Noongar community because that's the way he felt about them and I am sure they felt about him.
He was a Noongar wadjalla... Yep, in the Noongar sense he was moort - family - and you know, in the old Noongar sense one's ngorp blood mattered not, all that mattered was one's relationship, one's reciprocity.
Bob was always giving and his Noongar moort knew this, we all knew this.
He was a colbung...I have read where the word 'colbung' means friend.
In the language I know from the Noongar east we say maadarn or ngoonden, friend or brother, or ngoodjar brother-in-law, something similar to the name of that white-tailed black cockatoo the playful 'ngoolyark' whose origins link it to the porongorups the place of Noongar's borongaar, totem place of the older brother - a highly significant and sacred Noongar place near Albany.
Bob was a special being the kind of which I don't know if we will see again.
I only hope someone said something at his graveside, showed a Noongar concern for his passage to his spiritual home and to the Noongar that would be there to meet him.
Now, if that magpie, that koolbardi's song is anything to go by, then spring is coming, even when in our deepest burrow, in our darkness, we are all given to the possibility of hearing its song.
Bob we shall meet again.

I lost an auntie three days ago, two people that were close to me and two people I deeply respected. Two people who knew the Magpie's song.