The Ugly Blackwood

Theres a large blackwood tree that extends beyond the hills hoist, and intrudes over the neighbors newly built deck and concrete slab where we live. Its not particularly spectacular. In fact, as far as backyard trees go, its pretty ugly. The bark on its trunk is a thick black, scabby eyesore that is feathered with spiderwebs. Unlike the majestic river red gums of the barwon valley with their smooth white, wrinkly trunks,the blackwood in our backyard does not inspire.

It casts a dappled shadow over the yard most of the day except a corner of the back where I try to grow vegetables in straw bales. It drops leaf litter and branches down onto the cracking, shifting concrete path day in day out, so that if you never swept, eventually the concrete would be covered and disappear under it completely. In its sprawling branches live a gang of Red faced wattle birds. Other native birds visit the Blackwood to drink nectar from the flowers. New Holland Honey eaters, a couple of unspecified species of lorrikeet, or Rosella, or native parrot and even crows in habit the leafy fingers of this large meandering, not exactly attractive Gum. It was a hindrance to my desires when we first looked up into its canopy. But it was in fact the tree that sold us on coming here. Drew, us on, like something unnamed in our hearts.  It doesn't have a swing. But I spend a lot of time meditating on the life that festoons its jagged, twisting limbs. And we have worked with it. Around it. Under it. Slowly transforming the space under it and even using some of its dead branches in the construction of a fence. And the shade it affords the dried out lawn through the summer months is a pleasure to sit under.

Its an ugly old thing. But it has a certain charm about it. Becoming over time, as we have lived with it, a sort of companion

Bird Sightings

I took my first commuter trip on the train from Geelong to Melbourne yesterday. And for my trouble, I got to enjoy some different views of the same landscape. A closer view of the You Yangs and the flat country that borders its foot. A colony of sacred Ibises that reside in a natural swamp bordered by the Princess Highway, an over pass in Hoppers Crossing,  and a  housing development mushrooming up from the North East that was literally being concreted up tothe swamps edges as the train hurtled past. The beautiful grafitti and city decay. The poor and desperate. The mad. A magpie lark sitting stock still on top of an electrical box on St Kilda Rd. That was a poignant bird sighting. He was grubby and looked very tired and sick. On his right foot, a large growth or tumor of some sort protruded, and his feathers were scruffy and grubby. The city went on with its business all around him, heedless of  the sad truth that the poor thing was in all likely hood, going to die soon.

The Corner of my Eye

Out of the corner of my eye today,  I caught two things, of apparent insignificance, yet possibly, they were deeply significant.

The Indigenous flag, flying high above the roof tops of the town skyline.

A Sacred Ibis, landing on a neighbors roof.

Birds are interconnected with Indigenous dreaming and story. The other day I saw paintings of Waang the Crow and Bunjil, the Wedged Tailed Eagle. Both important figures in the story of this land. Crows are everywhere. I have only once seen a Wedge Tailed Eagle  on the Basalt plains.

The Magpie

I awoke to the sound of magpie warbling in the morning dark. The trees outside were quiet and the low rumble of a rubbish truck circling the  sleeping suburbs could be heard faintly in the distance. I'm not sure if my eyes and mind had opened or not. Like the grey light peeking over the line of rooftops out the kitchen window,  I was swimming up to consciousness in the half light,  aware of the Magpie's song.

  Moving this far south has brought us closer to nature, yet further from that part of me that took so long to grow on its surroundings, like a slow, creeping ivy. The familiarity of blue stone, asphalt and factories, I never thought would be so comforting.

Pelicans and Kites

 I gaze into the middle distance as I cut my way along a straight ribbon of bitumen for two hours a day. Basalt plains that flatten the mind. Landscape that flattens the perspective and soars with muted winter hues. I cross the border lands between two ancient tribes. Crows and magpies are a constant presence everywhere but now also Pelicans are a regular feature,  coming into view on the horizon, in flat formation cruising low enough almost to touch. Small raptors of some sort populate the bitumen's edge and the median strip aswell. Hovering with their dart like talons extend toward the earth. Occasionally one appears in the rear view mirror, wings aflutter. Then,  its wings stop. It hangs there momentarily, before plummeting like a spear towards its unseen prey.

Another place

Out the back, red faced honey eaters carouse in the empty branches of an Apricot tree. New Holland Honey Eaters as well, frolic and hop around on its gnarled fingers. Another Apricot tree. Another time. Another place. The same fog. A different fog.

A Butcher bird?

A Parrot.

A love lost within.

An anchor.

The Largest Aloneness

John Steinbeck on his mornings in Somerset, England...

"At about six in the morning a bird calls me awake. I don't even know what kind of bird but his voice rises and falls with the insistence of a bugle in the morning so that I want to answer, "I hear and I obey!" Then I get up, shake down the coal in the stove, make coffee and for an hour look out at the meadows and the trees. I hear and smell and see and feel the earth and I think - nothing. This is the most wonderful time. Elaine sleeps later and I am alone - the largest aloneness I have ever known, mystic and wonderful."