1
 
we've finally arrived
          knees pressing through surf, a going back
to ocean, how these worlds lap
          under and over
palm trees of light, tropic sun suggesting
          life; sandy thoughts teasing back
waves of conscience
 
how we tangle in nets, drift like styrofoam
onto shorelines, how nothing seems to touch us
 
so blind in this light, refusing to recognise
what draws us together, only
          the ambiguity of our dying
 
in this fragile place, snagged, half in
half out, waiting
          for the big tremor, for that one wave
that will take us out, or finally
          bring us back to earth
 
2
 
my mother reads satire through the window
and I hear every word from the other side
 
always there is someone saying what I am thinking
thinking what I am saying
 
on the other side of the window my mother reads
words that will never belong to us
 
3
 
before us the world opens
          a giant fissure, crater, hole
Wolf Creek, Jenolan Caves, Field of Mars
our feet at the edge, tremble
          feeling this drag, pull, thrust
though we cannot see where it comes from
          either this fear of being swallowed
or that desire to enter
          when the earth speaks
  
4
 
you can smell the burning wood
from O'Flynn's Beach, those fires that rage
out of sight behind us, that have driven us
to this place beside the sea
 
you can smell the green-house gases
from the house you rent
in Bandar Seri Begawan on the edge
of the river where you watch the boats
with their basket loads coming
          and going
on the tide like pedestrians
on the main street of Sydney
at peak hour
 
it all smells, so human
 
5
 
My mother is talking about Dural
a wildlife sanctuary north of Sydney
my brother used to run –
she's not on the other side of the window
when I remember how I first came here
          the first time I saw the sun
as a shadowland, as shade
          and the naked treeline
and beyond that the grasslands
sweeping in one direction, only
the compass point of a yellow rock wallaby
staring at me from within
 
6
 
sometimes the earth, like the blowhole
at Kiama, or the Devil's Throat
on the way to Port Arthur
opens between us
          and you call out to me
words that sound like an echo
          coming from that dark space
we cannot enter, or cross
          but somehow we understand
each other, the choices given to us
          or the things we refuse to hear