My memories of Australia are coming ashore in small groups, and often at dusk when the day's work has been done. I'm waiting for them as patiently as we waited for penguins in Tasmania. I haven't written much about Australia here because I want my memories to stay afloat, swim around where they are most fluent for as long as possible, until they land themselves as poems.
Our guide in Bicheno on the east coast of Tasmania told us, as I waited to see penguins in their natural habitat for the first time, that a group of penguins can be called a waddle (on land) and a raft (in the water). They can also be called a parcel. Parcel's the word he used most often as we watched them come ashore after a long day's fishing out on the reef several kilometres away. They took their time coming up the beach, stopping to clean their feathers, to chatter to each other, and to regain energy before reaching their main aim: feeding their hungry young chicks.
I travelled around Australia for a month, and I've been back home for a month, but the month in Australia feels much brighter, probably because it was. I'm making this feeling of brightness into a parcel of daylight, blue skies and wide horizons full of warmth and t-shirts. I'm writing my way into poems which I may be able to share with you one day.
And while I'm waiting for whatever's coming to shore, I offer to you some of the light - as best I can:
