Floodwall Afternoon

As I sat on the river's floodwall
the flax leaves slapped,
talking to the wind like a
murmuring crowd of concert goers
when the main act's late.

A fat landfill-fed gull slid
through the sky above
my chill metal bench which had
been canvas for pens
marking their territory.

And behind me on the
warm muscle of Mawhera Quay a
glistening sizzle of light washed metal drove
past. Mates who held the gauzy washed
spread of whitebait nets along the
outside door threw voices
full of hunter success through
the street.

And I stood but failed to
catch the strands.

Foreshore

High tide draws his salt touch along my reach.
Soft sea-foam ebbs on my shallow roots, as
my feathered punga green rolls out to catch
his rolling glassy wetness on my shore.

Smooth stone tumbles underneath his belly.
His seaweed chest reflects my kowhai eye,
as coral hard his hands grip deep to push
against his moon drawn twisting sandy depths.

The nikau rises tall her leaves my crown
as pohutakawa red blows in gusts,
pale ngaio breath extends a soft petal.
I wrap my watered stems against his thighs

of salt washed wood, his sister river's gift.
She tumbles them down mountain creek and stream
that he might pace along his water's edge.
Salt tide overcomes my soil rooted limbs.

My ngaio petal fast curls brown and limp.
My nikau crown shivers as she draws up
the salty broth that seeps next to her roots.
And he rewards with tide and sand a kiss,

the luna brackish dance of squall and storm.
When you walk on his shell flecked shore mind me -
My toe-toe feather flags whipping the wind
That skips and picks up misty veils of light.

Soon the silvered disk of arching weight
will draw again his salt touch in to me.

David Malouf's "Remembering Babylon" (1993)

I really enjoyed this novel's beautiful language. Malouf brings the Australian environment alive, from the buzzing teeming insect life to the soil and the people that live off it. This is a novel that is very much alive, brimming with sweat and heat. It's also a work about isolation and the human spirit. I really felt the isolation of Australia compared with the home of Europe, which is ironic given that I'm a New Zealander and for me Australia is a close neighbour. It brought home to me how courageous the early settlers were to reach out across the entire world and to move to such an alien land.

Sadly the feelings of alien-ness can become alienation and fear of difference. The indigenous people of Australia suffered (and still suffer) for their alien-ness. Yet they are at home in the land, it is their Eden as one character describes it. This character goes out and tries to understand and engage with the alien wildness of this new country, but his botanical knowledge is rebuffed and what is upheld is the ability to cast Australia in a mould of Europe with ripe soft peaches and asparagus. The settlers don't want to lose their life that they knew. You can see why this is, the vast unknown must have been overwhelming. How does the human mind process so many unknowns?