ink marks on a blank page Thurs 9th July

Odd little things move me, snatches of song, a different bird darting in an out of a bush or flower, something someone or a child says...I stop , if I can, and try to fix that point of time in my mind.Then in a quiet moment, a reflect on the day time, reclaim that 'thing' from my recent past. I am particularly fond of Leonard Cohen(songs) for that, though one can hardly call them songs as he really doesn't sing as in speak with a golden voice.. They are for the most part histories that are linked with music and written in a poetic form. Music that forms the base of my listening though is classical, but anything that is played well and if it has words,the words will have to mean something profound .

Here in OZ there are lots of fine musos who can write good lyrics and great melodies that compliment the lyric. Many years ago I knew a young fellow,Doug Ashdown ,who wrote many wonderful songs and then at the height of his acclaim here went off to America and wrote a song called 'Winter in America'. Youtube it, as it still gets lots of plays and was a major No 1hit for Doug 30years ago. Whenever I play that song I see Doug on the back of his brothers Triumph motorcycle riding up to the Koffee Cup in Glenelg and then the brain clicks back to that part of life. Coming out of the clock radio tuesday morning as I got up was a song by a local group(melbourne) Little Heroes, called 'One Perfect Day'. Oh but I got some memory mileage out of that. We all have songs which will strike a bell in our collective memory stream, they have words which resonate and glue certain happenings into place, good or bad.Such was 'One Perfect Day', and it was in the throes of all that introspection that found me staring at the still water in my sweet spot on the river, that of the bend where the water rat has its domicile.

Looking at the reflections took me back to my childhood when on Remembrance day we would gather at the War Memorial and listen to the Dawn service. Pretty bog standard issue Memorial this was with a large cross, marble statues of warlike angels and in front a large still pool in which all was reflected. That's the key isn't it? a large pool in which everything was reflected.As a child I wondered why there was a pool there ,never asked my elders mind, perhaps I thought it was just such a straightforward unecessary question, one of those things that even a small boy should know without even asking. Must have been about my 3rd or 4th Dawn service when I was standing there wondering why we were there when I saw reflected in the pool a large bird flying overhead, an eagle or something similar.Reflected in the pool it flew the length of the still water then all of a sudden I knew why there was a pool there, basically as well I also figured out why we were there too.



So I stand at the bend in the river most morns, not if it is raining of course,I might be different but I do know to come in out of the rain, gazing at the reflections of life as it unfolds in Paradise. Y'see I can watch the goings on in the trees opposite,reflected so clearly in the River Torrens. Gaze undisturbed at the parrots ,lorikeets and magpies flying in and out of the crowns of the trees on the other bank.Squabbling,shrieking ,hooting at each other whilst all the time trying to get in their daily rations. Perhaps that is how my bird calling man started his calling,the walking up and down furiously waving arms and hooting might just have been a reflection of what he saw there too.Notice I said have been, a semantic reference to the fact I haven't seen him for ten days, most unusual,most disturbing. Shame that you, the viewers, can't see what I see in my living camera obscura, life unfolding undisturbed on a daily basis.Should you be like me ,rise early,move about doing your thing in the house then go out walking you see and hear different birds ,creatures doing their collective thing at different but similar times each day.

The earliest risers here are the noisy miners, then the magpies/ducks/ibis followed by moorhens/cooters/lorikeets -grass parrots . The honey eaters arrive about 9 or later depending on the warmth of the day. The din that these birds make is wonderful,no wonder that St.Saens composed his'carnival of the Animals'.



So that is the start of the robbi day, a reflection on what has passed and passes overhead. Hortense worries that I do a little more reflecting than I should, perhaps, but I love my life and to reflect back on even the bad bits is cathartic and food for my meagre soul.

ink marks on a blank page Mon 6th July

Each morning ,rain or shine , I trundle out of the house just on dawn and go for a walk along a pathway that winds around the banks of a little river . This is not a iver in the majestic sense of the term but a wee small thing that is more a creek than river, although we like to adopt a position of grandeur and call it river. Mostly I take my camera and push said machine into the face of any of the wild things that inhabit the water way.Often I have managed to photograph some once in a lifetime pics, once a pair of Kingfishers fighting in mid air, the water rat going about its business, one that lives on my favourite bend in the river. A woodduck flew up in front of me, kept flying straight towards me at head height, I managed to get the camera up and fire off a few shots as it got close. Then there have been numerous times that I have seen rare birds scurrying about in the reeds and also times when I have seen where an Echidna has been.
Lots and lots of different trees that have bent and twisted into weird shapes, many beautiful parrots and my great mates the magpies. Crows are another favourite too, as when I lived way up in the desert country the only sound you could hear sometimes , apart from your own and the horses breath was the cawing of crows.They became good travelling companions even though clad as they are in funereal garb and are hurtful cruel creatures , when there is nobody else we cling to any companion do we not.

But my main exercise lately has been to look at trees, and just in this one stretch of our park where I walk there are at least thirty species. There are some that are indigenous to the area, others that are native but from other states but grow and prosper here, and there are those that are from other countries. One such is the pepper tree, not a genuine pepper of course but an exotic lovely tree all the same. A native of South America and Mexico actually and not at all indigenous to OZ although many grow here, and very well too. So much so they are regarded as a pest and a noxious weed . Go to any country town in OZ and you will find the pepper tree planted everywhere. There are quite a number in our park here, possibly some that were planted by the river as the early farms got established along the way, others of course sprouted from seeds ingested by birds. Many country butchers used the larger offcuts to make chopping blocks for quartering up their meat, they were much prized for that purpose in the dryer country towns.Relatively slow growing they do however have a long life and even though they are not native I personally have a very fond attachment to them. My first true love and I had a tree house in a massive big pepper tree that had a leaf spread that was all of forty feet across and so dense with branches that wept,drooped, down to the ground. I wrote a poem about her last year as she still figures in my thoughts after more than 50 years.The older trees grow galls on their trunks that we used to see 'things' in, then we would carve the gall to fit the image we could see, I shall try and do the same to the one pictured as I think that there is the hint of a baboon there on that large gall on the left (midway up). Perhaps one needs to be either a child or regressing toward that state to see it.Forgive me an indulgence, as I re-read this I thought once more about my pepper tree love, so will post the poem(again) although it concerns not pepper trees but a tidal creek and a very warm and languid Autumn afternoon (and I am overcome with the emotion of remembrance),but it is about love ( of which I am most fond).

oh shirley
pirouette of my childhood
redgold autumn hair glinting in dusty sun,
you laughed and teased
spun dreams with indelible lies,
and bade me love you
for I did

warm memories of forever summers
and hidden fumbles
etched your heart on my soul,
as the days spread open you blithely danced your schemes
whilst I segued my way through each tangled web ,
then waited in weary eagerness for night and sleep,
just another passage to the doorway of your history becoming my dreams

we watched the autumn dragonflies
as they flew joined in loves grace together ,
kissing still green water then once ,
you said we could do that
as all innocents have and will, we did

perhaps it was then ;
when the taste of your saltiness awakened lust
I knew that this was where life began
the child had left ,
we had lost the icon of youth,
summer magic became just a fleeting season
the days were simply numbered hours ,
sleep reclaimed the night
age overcame the reason