Green Lake

Green Lake Conservation Reserve.

A circle of mallee gums,

around a dry lake bed,

The locals say, there is a bog hole

 and water seeps away.

The locals want to plug it,

 to bring back the water,

To bring back the people

with their boats and toys.

I say, why not let it be,

Watch and listen,

abundance enough for all, 

 lies here.

A crucible of fecundity 

amidst the wheat fields of the Mallee.

------------------------------

Our soul lies down in the grass,

After two nights and days of rain,

The seed heads rise out from the mud,

Stars of pain,

Smiling at the sun.

Swiftly  swiftly swallows overhead,

Their feathered bodies

spinning on the warm breeze

into the linen blue sky. 

Bees and dragonflies,

orbiting around one another,

catching the sun,

their Kandinsky wings.

flickering light back into our eyes.

Green Lake,

the centre of the world,

Centre of the universe

Centre of ourselves.

—Mallee Wimmera Collection

—22 April 2017