lagoon #31

we are a solemn gathering now I stand at the top of the path with you looking down into the bowl to me it is a forlorn sight with the floor cracked open like a crazed sore scabbing but too tender to touch the fallen trees are a disquiet in the thin embrace of silence …

seasonal content

the season has changed without doubt now in the space of a week it has passed from light summer-doona to winter and back again as the nights have cooled inconsistently from shorts and no shirt to trackie-daks jumper socks and slippers each evening has been starry and cool the night before last it rained a …

lagoon #30

desiccation has occurred overnight the plump water-fat fish bodies have sagged and shriveled and the waterhole this strangely fascinating study of heat and time and detached involvement has shrunk with them since yesterday it is no more now than a muddy bog a death hallow with disturbing shapes suspended in ghost branches and a handful …

lagoon #29

it has come more quickly than I'd expected less than a day since my last visit they are revealed in a miserable totality while we approach along the walking path a young boy a teenager is leaving the remnant billabong mud coating hands and legs as he rides by on a bicycle he has been …

normal wonder

ha canberra has been buried by ice well a massive hail storm anyway about a metre deep in places filling shops and houses meeting places and centres of discourse biggest storm in years but here we had clouds on the horizon light shows and grumbles but not that good wet stuff I drove past a …

lagoon #28

it resembles a desolation now the nondescript weed that has grown in the aftermath of water is a sickly shade of green and stands as tall as a man it is like a pestilence surrounding the last of the pond and together with the brown algae suggests stagnation the fish are evident in clusters gathered …

the farmer’s march

that and now it is almost past february I’m surrounded by the flashing strobe of lightning the agitation of thunder from here bedded in the heart of the month they say now that it will be march yes march will see the end of el niño the bravest have announced the very date of his …

lagoon #27

it's a difficult image to get out of my head I've avoided the writing for days now but it remains it is such a small pondage now I've seen from the depth of water measured against a spoonbill leg that it is shallow all the way across mere inches but the fish are an extraordinary …

rain traces

the storms have arrived in this geography as the summer wanes we get storms each night on the news the weather tracker shows where there has been lightning where it has started fire where there is prospect of rain we have had some rain on more than one occasion there has been a downpour a …

lagoon #26

I can't help but smile this morning there is a crowd perhaps even a gaggle two herons three spoonbills an ibis all beaking their way around the waterhole at pace a veritable frenzy they’re able to walk from end to end now the water has dropped far enough to allow full concentration on the job …