A product of yesterday’s ‘Witnessing Landscapes’ workshop with Sally Piper.
I am capable of travelling great distances, leaking through porous rock and soil with the force of a mountain behind me.
Some seasons I am so abundant there is no holding back the pressure, and so I must surface and travel above ground, liberated by the flood and the formation of creeks until I return to the billabong, an ephemeral puddle for the animals and insects, amphibians and migrating birds, until I return to my underground lair and my slower journey resumes.
Before white man came, the rains attracted nomads who gathered for feasts of bunya nut and wallaby, their fire and song electrifying the night.
Now my energy is diminished, tapped by agriculture, wanting and needing to artificially prolong the billabong, the feast, the fattening of parasites that dot this landscape, my journey’s infinite story long forgotten.
I decided not to edit it too much. This is virtually how it appears on the page with a correction here and there, written in a 5 minute burst.