Essays

Sung

Sung - 21/10/96

The whales swim by not far from here. This eroded headland with its bombora that the fisherman love so much. There are half a dozen of them up on the wave washed rock platform at the tip of the headland now. They stand there swinging their big rods against the sea. Each one of them waiting for that moment when they can struggle excitedly with whatever the Sea has given them.

How many times did I sit with my Father as he strove to relax in this oh so masculine retreat from the hum drum of his daily world. Did it bring him peace, being out here in the elements. The biting wind kept at bay by his heavy old Windcheater. The skin splitting salt and the burning sun kept at bay with lip balm, a hat and by being a man. There he would sit, cigarette hanging lazily from the corner of his mouth. What killed him, I wonder, the smoking or the long working hours. I think of you often when I watch the other men around me.

You would sit on the rocks or the river bank or where ever we were, one hand holding the fishing rod, the other with a finger resting on the line waiting, waiting for that hint of interest. What interests your spirit now I wonder ? Do you sit at my shoulder like the Maori's say their ancestors do. Do you occupy some sort of Valhalla somewhere with the rest of our ancestors. I have visualised the host sometimes in meditation. You and mum standing before me, your parents behind you, theirs behind them and so on ad infinitum off into the dim timeless past of our history. Do I carry all of you with me, is all of your wisdom there somewhere inside the vagaries of my consciousness ? Do you sing to me in the quiet moments of my life ? Do I listen ?

Yes the Whales come past this headland. Right Whales swimming with their young calves right here in these small coastal bays. Humpbacks out further cruising their song filled superhighway between the Great Barrier Reef and the Antarctic Ocean. Do you sing of the freedom from our hunting, now that we have recognised the callous cruelty of blowing up the insides of an intelligent species. Do you sing of the caress of ocean, do you sing of the old days when the sea was filled only with your song and not the continual aural harassment of ships engines ? 

We have stopped slaughtering you, but not all whales. Nor do we seem to have learned. Now it is the turn of the Gemfish and the Tuna and goodness knows how many other species. We are the cause of the most extensive and rapid extinction event in the whole history of this planet. No meteor impact matches what we are doing and don't seem to be able to stop because we have to earn a living.

Two Magpies warble at me from the wind twisted branches of Banksias growing on the slopes of the headland. So dashing in your black and white attire that few do not admire you. What do you warble to me about. What song do you sing on this sun filled windy day. Is it about the whales, is it about the fishermen that are now trekking back to their sheds and their kitchens.

"Gudday"; "Anything"; "Nuh supposed to be some Trevally about but I think the waters too cold." I nod in appreciation of their wisdom and the Magpies fill the day with their symphony.

The sun is warm, the wind is cold, the surf roars loud in its thrashing of the rocks and I breathe deeply of the moment. The shelter of the headland is welcome. I like this part of the world, with it's postcard scenery and seaside towns and villages. Enjoy it while you can for the push is on and all will fall before the onslaught of the human population explosion. The locals are trying to stop the housing development along the coastal edge of the highway.

The landholders though are trapped and will have their way. The rates are too high to make farming viable anymore and the council regulations stop them for the moment from selling to unscrupulous developers. Development will win out, no one has the courage to stop development. All this coast will be houses one day. High rises on the beaches and mansions on the hills. Oz is ruled by the dollar, there are no notions of altruism, duty and caring for others and the land. If it stands still chop it down, if it moves shoot it.

Seems like this country has always had a split personality, with the conservationists always losing out to the developers. Its frightening to think that I will be able to stand up in ten years time and say 'I told you so'. They wont care, they will have had their pound of flesh and will most likely have their snouts in another trough somewhere. Having fouled one place they just move onto the next like some sort of parasite that sucks the goodness out of its host and leaves it crippled and dying.

Is that what the Magpies are singing about, all those lawns and gardens to feed in and die from insecticide or herbicide poisoning. Perhaps it is about all those well meaning retirees feeding them bits of steak and turning you into dependent welfare receivers. Just like any native population. It's easier to eat the free food that's given to you than keep gathering your own. Now we are reaping the whirlwind of that earlier assimilation policy. We conquering whites want the indigenous peolpes to be independent yet kept subservient so that they do not threaten our sense of superiority. Destroy their religion and beliefs and treat them just like us. We orphan them and then refuse to help them heal the wound of that orphaning. When you are worried about your own survival you do not care about the quality of life of other people. A whole race consumed by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I used to feed my orphaned fledgling Maggies bread and milk when I was a kid. Nearly every spring I'd bring something home. Some injured, orphaned or strayed animal of some sort. "Look mum it just followed me home, can I keep it". Now I do this for people, I try and repair them and then send them back out into the world. Ten years of it so far and not many seem to have got the point. Most want to find an excuse for their illness instead of taking responsibility for the rubbish in their lives and tidying it up.

Only once did Mum kick up a stink about one of my menagerie. I came home from school one day and found Mum sitting on the back steps. "Your Black Snake is somewhere in the TV room, get it out of the house now!" "Oh Muuhhmm, it's only a foot long," I whined. Somehow the Vet I asked to defang it wasn't impressed either. So I let it go. As for the Ant Lions, She Oak Skinks, Blue tongues and Percy the Ring Tail Possum, they are only memories now. Twenty years it would be since Perce finally gave up sleeping in my old coat, eating Mum's pumpkins and climbing up the legs of Mum's dinner guests, and went wild. Perhaps Percy was killed by a car just like his mother was. Perhaps he became like some sort of reverse Mowgli of the Possums. Is that what you warble to me about my dapper Magpie Duo. Is it my Dreamtime that you have sung me into just now.

The rocks are warm now from the midday sun. The wind is swinging around to the north east. I reach out and feel the warm roughness of the rocks. It's strength and age reach out to me from it's depth. A Crinoid stem here some Fenestella there tell of the ancient shallow sea that formed this rock millions of years ago. A part of a brachiopod juts out of the mud stone, it's spherical smoothness held intact all of these millennia by the slow leaching of minerals. Some small round stones also jut out from the surface. Volcanic ejecta from the ancient volcano now twenty kilometres off the coast and 300 metres underwater. The remnants of the hot spot that burnt that hole through the crust here are all around. A couple of rounded hills showing none of the sandstone cliffs so common on this part of the coast. Lots of rich volcanic soil that used to support thousands of farmers, but now supports hundreds of horse studs, ostrich farms and alpaca ranches.

I rub my hand over the shell fossil. What songs did you sing when you swam those prehistoric oceans ? Did any of your fellow inhabitants of those waters sing to you of the sun. Of the moon that was so much closer than today. That huge moon and its phenomenal tides. Did you sing to each other of the meteors and comets that regularly blasted the surface of this blue and green gem and that each pass rained new genetic material into that soup of creation that you lived in. Did you sing of the massive volcanic activity that finally clouded the world and caused the great Cretaceous extinction event. For how long were the oceans silent, for how long were the songs of being absent from the world.

Do the whales now sing the long histories of all those who have sung in the oceans. Peeling out name after name like some biblical family tree of the most renowned oceanic cantors.

Today I sit and listen to the songs of the world. The wind, the waves, the rocks and above these continual rhythms and drones come the highlights of the living. Interspersed, counter pointed, harmonised. No it isn't a silent spring, not quite yet. Somehow I don't think we will ever kill off everything. The Symphony of the Natural world though is no longer sung by a full choir. Each day some species reaches it's critical population threshold and becomes extinct. I want to listen to the full choir not just an acapella group, no matter how skilful.

Today I sit and enjoy the sun, out of the wind beside this great finger of land caressing the skin of the ocean. I bask in the song of the world and dream. Dream of the Singing.