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