The Brisbane skyline from the delightful botanic gardens at Mt Coot-tha
I'll miss Australia. Yet again it's proved to be a fascinating and friendly place, full of surprises, beauty, beer and, of course, the biggest and best of everything in the world1.
Anyway, on my penultimate day in Brisbane I visited the botanic gardens at Mt Coot-tha (not the botanic gardens in the city centre, but a bigger and better version on the outskirts of the city). Wandering through the lush undergrowth, I came across a sign containing a poem by the one and only Bill Neidjie, famous Aboriginal poet and someone whom I read a fair amount about when I was hanging around Kakadu and Uluru. It sums up the relationship between me and the natural beauty of Australia quite well. It's called 'Story About Feeling', and here it is in all its glory.
Tree same thing. E watching you.
You look tree you say... 'Oh'
That tree e listen to you, what you!
E got no finger, e can't speak
But that leaf, e pumping his.
Way e grow in the night while you sleeping...
You dream something, that tree and grass same thing...
E grow with your body, your feeling...
When you feeling tree, e work with you tree.
You cut im little bit, you got water coming out.
That's his blood, same as your blood. So e alive...
Well that tree same as you. If you feel sore...
'Oh, I'm my body sore!'
Well that means somebody killing tree
Because your body on that tree or earth.
I love this poem. I guess that it's better if you know what the Aboriginal accent sounds like – it sure as hell isn't the same as straight Australian – but the imagery is simple and powerful.
Perhaps I like it because one of the most delightful pleasures in life is sitting under a tree, shaded from the boiling sun by protective branches while you read a book, have a picnic or just watch the world float past. Or perhaps I like it because it sums up Australia to me – it's a deeply spiritual place, whatever the tourist images depict.
1 To tell the truth, I rather enjoy the Australian obsession with size: biggest, smallest, furthest, best... Aussie law doesn't prevent advertisers from saying things like 'the best pizza in Australia' or 'the funniest show on earth'. I swear I've never seen so many places claiming to be the 'best eating place in the world', and this in a country where a test on doner kebabs showed that one in four are likely to make you ill. Still, the hospitals are probably the best in the world, so it all fits together...
