Scattered Images in My Mind 2
We are on vacation, you and me together
Travelling in Western Australia, travelling in the heat of summer, travelling for one day
Morning
Across the sparkling Coral Bay
I see
sun rising from eternity
I stand
alone
on top of a reef
withering heights
I am out towards the edge of it
By wet or hand, or shine or air
it forming force flows everywhere
it is the first and last life-light you see
earth warming vital energy...
But I am passive, flat, detached
I lost myself to doom and gloom
that numbing feeling
seeing everything through a pane of glass
I spotted a whale
and cried aloud
as their numbers are dwindling...
nobody talks
about disappearing cultures
and languages
how technically sophisticated
we become
and how vulnerable
we are.
We have to accept
whatever is our destiny
I don't want to be here, so I close my eyes
Am I going to jump or continue with my life?
What to do with my day?
So many options and choices I face
I wonder what I will miss out on
not what I stand to gain.
Amy Tan and her book: ' Saving Fish from Drowning'
came to my mind.
A pious man explained to his followers,
how he pledged each day to save a hundred lives,
he caught a hundred fishes and sold them on a market
for a good price.
I realized
I don't take enjoyment from taking lives
others or mine
I am a winner
I just got the chance
to keep on living
lying in the sushine
is the best way to spend my time.
Midday
'Large swaths of Mandurah and Bunbury
would be under water
by the end of century.'
radio presenter's voice echoes in my car
which feels like a oven
in the heat of the midday sun.
I recline in the shade
wandering
'If you knew the exact moment of your death,
would you be the same?'
A helicopter clatters overhead
heading along the surf break to the river mouth.
My guess is someone was taken by a shark.
Hot, hot, hot
it is ever-changing yet the same
there was a breeze before it came
it is ever shining in clear day
and ever changing yet it stays
slip, slop, slap is the only way
to avoid skin cancer and sunburnt
so stay indoors I would say.
I head to the city
in the heat of summer day
to meet my eldest son.
Thoughtful, passionate, caring
and just a little bit different man,
who believes can help change
the course of our planet.
He greets me with his sad eyes:
"Because how do you know about the future?
You look what happened in the past."
"Grave fears are held for the future of the Swan Rivers' dolphins",
I follow him to the river path.
He shows me a still body.
" Six died in the past five months."
I just sighed: " It's great,
your voluntary work..
but
it does not pay your bills and the mortgage."
He shrugged:
" No amount of money can replace a life."
Afternoon
" There was a week that I spent sailing a little dingy
on the Walpole inlets
and there have been countless times
that I have paddled kayak to the river mouth,
do you remember, Mum?'
I nodded and smiled as we walked Mandalay Beach today
when the bush has that musty, herby smell
and sound of cicadas filled the grass.
" Those wild excursions to Snake Island and picnics at Circular Pool,
in the tingle forest... the best childhood adventure for everyone."
he laughed and we sat down,
on the beach
tired and happy,
watching some surfers dancing on the waves
happy to have my hat's shadow
fall across my shoulders as I squint
across the hot, squeaking sand.
It has been a warm summer day
on one of those long West Australian bays
full of pungent coastal plants,
dried kelp
and sunbaked limestone
a thousand little reptiles
hidden back in the dunes.
I asked my son what makes him happy,
what he wants from life.
" It's not a prize, it's clearly not a fame,
nor money, just few good mates and
feeling like I'm doing something good in the world",
was his reply.
It made me look at the world differently
with the belief there is a God
and he exists inside everyone.
Evening
The fading light casts otherworldly beauty
at Sugarloaf Rock
A flamingo on a lake
pretty in pink
I leave the beach
to discover our arid zone.
The biggest wilderness on the planet
after Antarctica
passes in front of my eyes
and I feel part of the landscape
in a tactile way.
It is humbling to stand in a shadow
of the oldest crustal rock on Earth.
I am alone
as the sun is drawn down to the horizon
and I want to jump again
to break away
to dance across the desert mystical place
just for a moment.
My travelling comes to an end.
By wet or hand, or shine or air
it forming force flows everywhere
it is the first and last life-light you see
earth warming vital energy...
My travelling comes to an end
my shadow dances across the desert
on its own
before returning
refreshed by its liberty.
As travellers,
there is no place
we belong,
we are just flickering images
on the ocean floor
on the desert plain...
we belong
only temporarily
to the places we are in
as our shadows fall across...
disappearing with the last rays of the earth warming vital energy.
