Sunday, November 6, 2016

John Bennett #6 Jagun 5.15am


Trees etched on a slip of light, Japanese
print incorporating two male kangaroos  
blurring as they bound into the bush.
Half-an-hour till sunrise, clear blank sky
but trees muzzle the eye, instead I’m drenched
in song, all the birds are awake and busy
tuning a new day. Can there be too much music?
I record a Catbird plus the rest, the sea shouts
in front of me, behind, trucks gear the M1.


I climb a clutch of thick Banksia scrub,
Sarsaparilla Vines hook my jacket,
a Brush Turkey’s noisy silhouette
scrapes a red glow, the horizon is alight
and I surprise our star sitting on the water
shooting up the empty beach. Still avoiding
green, leaves are glazed an apricot bronze,
the sun is gilding everything in reach.




The provenance of distance is lost in mist,
the waves are splashing brightly, nails of light
hammer the forest riddled with lyric paths
I use to find the way home.




Note: Jagun Nature Reserve, meaning ‘home’ or ‘belonging’ in the local Gumbaynggirr language. Home is a forest of Pink Bloodwood and Blackbutt with pockets of Coastal Banksia scrub, a strip of littoral rainforest, swale of She-oaks and dunes thick with a prostrate wattle (introduced from WA). 

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