Blackwood to the Garden of St Erth.

Wombat State Forest

 This walk took being slightly intrepid. No doubt others didn't risk the forecast showers, storms, hail. I can understand that. However, the reward for braving the weather was the discovery of wilderness, the way nature asserts its primacy after humans have done their dash, and the wonderful contrasts between the tall manna gums and messmate and the rich mix of logs, moss, ferns, bark, leaf litter, and plants with domestic names: musk daisy bush, blanket-leaf.

moss and ferns

 St Erth's cafe serves delicious fare made with home-grown ingredients. We entertained each other with our various recorded experiences and interpretations, and the sun was still shining when we left. The hard-hitting rain started as I drove through Greendale and has settled in. Nice to be cosy and warm after a day out in the elements. I feel much healthier than I did this morning, though.

and yes, it was a damp day

Observations: (Jennie)

drips and taps, plinks,
a distant trilling by water
birds reach highest notes
is there ever pure
       stillness?
not here

we walked into scattered showers
if we'd stood still, they would have
found us anyway
kindly restrained showers, no pelting
or sidelong attack
just the gentle drip and drop
patter and plop
rain's ricochet from leafy roof

How Peg Maltby that deep mine
wallpapered with moss and fernlet
home for three in The Great Depression - 
Did this lift spirits then? 
or provide
a dry, smooth-walled warren,
a den for invisible men?

dimmed lights
then brightness
piercing leaves
the bush radiating
this yellow glow
back to the sun

Being There: (Heather)

In my new journal a surprise inscription from my son: "You er the best mum you er" 

Me: feet pressed into boots, one bearing almost all with a slice of pinch down the left which tells the sloping path. 

Hips: cocked, one onto the straight, weight-bearing foot, the other a bent pipe caved in toward my abdomen. 

Chest: breathing my own skin scent - lunch, sleep and laundry powder lifted by wet green and brown (things of the forest)

Head: in the game? Attached to the rest of me at least and upright, which is a start. 

Ears: are by far the most alive part with the world a singing bowl catching and rippling in the white noise of infinite leaves with their minuscule movements. 

Ready to walk now. 

The great breathing forest releases it's messengers - woods and mints to the eucalypt and earth decay pheromones. 

It scatters ants. 

The mosses snug into one another, hugging their boulder pillows as our little party (nothing much in the great scheme of things) pick and stump 

a path. Plastic sheathed, boulderish creatures ourselves, swaying and rocking along the packed path. We pebbles explode from the water race leaf-tips. 

Brown and green the fur cloak of the forest. It's bristling thickets hide a crawling skin from peeping eyes - the world beneath. 

the three-liners: (Lyn)

Stones in the garden of St Erth

gray skies-

rain falls gently

impatient to water the land

elm trees-

pale green leaves slowly opening

like flowers blooming

rainy day-

where the wise and foolish gather

who has an umbrella?

a clearing-

in the virgin bush years ago

still hears the call of rosellas today

gum trees stretch above

impossible blue hyacinths

yearning to see the sky too

I’m not in the club

but St Erth welcomes all

with damp green arms outstretched

on the lawn-

chinese cameras click softly

memories are sweet-tasting

daffodils-

only seed pods now

storing food for the new spring

under the elm tree-

a fuschia-pink child

poses for her mother

gravel paths-

relax, be rested

as you breathe up a slope

espaliered trees-

limbs akimbo yet

holding hands like a family

the cafe of St. Erth-

can we look inconspicuous

as our pens scribble on paper

plant tubes-

row upon row waiting for

green or black fingers to plant them out

heaven on a twig-

pink rhododendrons cluster

in full sunlight like lovers

in the cafe-

blowflies think that summer

is already here.