in response to Coochie Then

There is a place that beats

With the heart of community:

A world apart where time stands still

In constant motion.

A place that inhales the bustle of the world;

Filters the undesired excess

Cleanses the waters of the soul;

Exhales a serenity that seeps beneath

Salt-jewelled skin,

Stays with all who come...

… and go…

… and come…

… and go…

always leaving

always returning

There is a place of cunjevoi,

Of healing for body and mind

A world where the swamp-lily and centella

Relieve the sting of the jellyfish,

Ease the groaning of bones

That watched the paperbark grow.

A place where the tawny frog-mouth makes its home,

Disappearing on the cypress branch

While the Curlew sinks into the leaf litter

Both invisible

At one with the world that envelops them.

There is a place of Avicennia Marina,

Of mangroves and mud,

Shorebirds and probes.

A magical space where fresh and salt mingle

Neither one...

A world within worlds

Breathing together...

... breathing together.

A place that travels around the world,

Paints the shine on feathers that fly from here...

Where the buzz of the Mangrove mozzie

Vibrates in the bones of birds

Singing in Siberia,

Fishing in Japan,

Re-energising on the mudflats that

Stain the hem of Emerald fringe.

There is a place that calls to us

As it called to those before;

With siren-song that floats

Over mirror-glassed bay;

A song that calls to adventure Farmers, and nurses,

And writers, and artists,

And calls us now to remember;

To follow the footprints

Alphabetted in the sand,

And in the crab doilies,

To marvel at the graffiti left by the tide That ebbs...

A place where the dreamers thrive

With the do-ers who keep them anchored

Even as they paint the do-er into a world

Of ecological artistry.

A place that cannot be contained

On page

Restrained by ink

Or brush

Must be lived.

Feet stained with red mud,

Lungs full of melaleuca air,

Skin dappled with the golden threads

Of the sun dancing with the casuarina.

There is a place that beats

With the heart of community,

A world outside of time...

Carried in the hearts of all who come...

drifters on the moonlight tide of Coochiemudlo Island.

© 2023 Kate Barker