Old Man Tuart

Old Man Tuart 29th Jan 2009
Where I live was once an old Tuart, he was just a stump when I first came here.
His size was huge, and when alive he must have shaded the wild horses in the district.
I reckon he must have been very old, he might even have been in the vicinity of 800 years.
As I come to think about it now, to the Noongar he was probably a favourite, they probably climbed into his branches for eggs and possum.
Maybe they just rested beneath his branches when hunting duck and djilgies in the nearby lakes.
Imagine that!?
Imagine when Perth was a placename in Scotland.
When Perth belonged to the Picts and this region belonged to the Noongar - Booroo - place of lakes and swamps full with tortoise, kweyaar boolaarr with plenty of frogs, and women folk, whose naked bodies glistened red from oily ochre... and kids laughing, screaming in joy... bitten by a djilgie, thrusting arms into their burrows in the stream banks to pull them out, and duck and lizards hanging limp in the men's noolburn belts - men scraping their spears by their smokey fires, watching for the smoke of others beyond, signals on the horizon... and the shadows getting longer, the sun sinking and in the silence an old man singing!
Imagine when Perth was a place in Scotland!
And this boodjaa smelt of the doolyaar-kaalanginy, the scent from burning leaves. Yep, this old Tuart must have heard any number of sounds - Noongar singing by their fires, warm and snug in their bell hut mias - a far cry from the noise that is now...
And to think, that everywhere in all directions this was true... all sand holds the memory of such fires and old trees, fires that were cooked over, sung over and old trees that shaded the many, now memories in the soil, bone and charcoal beneath the houses of the residents of Perth.

Maaman Yira

Maaman Yira 29th Jan 2009

Ngany Kongk, Cliff Humphries, baal waarngk, djurrep kaadidjiny, aalee Maaman yira nidja nyininy!!
Yey bidiyaa maar-yaaragat nyininy - Noongar bidiyaa!!
Baalaa nop, baalaa borong, baal Maaman-aa-maadarn Reverend, baal Maaman waarngk-djurrepiny ngaartamurnong!!
Yey nidja Maaman, ngiyan baal??
Baal Hebrew bidiyaa 'Yahweh' maar yaaragata kep-kurliny...
Noongar/Hebrew bidiyaa keny!
Maar moorn yaaragat!! Maaman bidiyaa djirilmari bwoorr waarngkiny, keniny!!
Kep yaaragat kurliny!!

Watching the box

Watching the box 6th Jan 2009

This is a tangled web. I cannot find work and with no money I am living on the edge. But I speak with some language, learnt from an old man and his wife. But I have no one to talk to and this language I have learnt is good for nothing.
I am sick of the conversations I have with myself.
We always talk about the same things.
Sometimes I talk to the crows, when I talk to the crows and the willy wagtail I wonder if they can understand me, because there ain't a Noongar in sight I can speak to.

Ngientj nidja keny-nyininy - windji noonagat - boolaarang baalap dwonkbert - woort koorliny, english mai waangkiny!!

What, for why, why, how could you let a language die.
You say the old people didn't want to reveal it - bullshit - nah, no one wanted to listen - that's the truth, no one was prepared to sit around the old kids fire to rest their head within their night-time mia - nahh - couldn't be bothered, nahh don't shit me with your lies...about how the old ones didn't want to reveal it before they died.
When I was shifting gas bottles and collecting wood, where were you?
When I was scraping salt and being torn to shreds where were you?
When I was eating flaps on the fire - where were you?
Yuaart! No you were somewhere inside watching the box.

How could you let a language die?? A disregard for the birds that are singing, a disinterest in all their wisdom bringing.

How could you let it go?

Avon Catchment Council

Avon Catchment Council 14th December 2008

Yeyi moort-ngaanaarng, kaaram baal Avon Catchment Council, nidja nyitiyang yaaly-bidiyaa-yok, soil scientist, baal ngany mar-waarngkiny: "Yuart! Noonook, one culture, one people, one place..." Yey woort-koorl!

Yeyi baal yaaly-bidiyaa baal kaadidjbert nidja Noongar-aa-boodjaa... yeyi nidja bidiyaa-yok, baal kaataa-waarngkiny....Noongar-aa-noll dalanginy, djuret-bert, yaaly nornabin!!

Meeak: Ali djinang

Ali djinang!! 14th December 2008

Yey baal, meeak bidiyaa baal koombaar, baalaa yok, nidja boodjaa, baal kaalanginy! 38.4 degrees kaalanginy!! Koonkaa-kep kwoordidjiny, yey baal meeak baal boodjaa dandanginy, woolagat, yaaragat ngaardaa-djinaanginy...lover's kaanine-djil - bwoorr nidja maaret baal djoorapiny bilerniny...

Baalang kootjal, doorntjal baalap kwopidaa, this earth and the moon doorntjal keniny, moonyanginy kenyabiny koorliny

Ali djinang!!

Ngaalar Djoolaa Mereny Daartjabin

Ngaalar Djoolaar Mereny-Daartjabin 10-12-08
Ngaalar djoolaar yaalyabin... Wadj-djoolar yaalyabin... Kaaram ngaalaa kaalap Wadjak, yeyi yaaly, boodjaabin djirrilymaari mereny-daartjabin

The soil is the bones of billions

The soil is the bones of billions 9th December 2008
Has anyone thought of what one does when they take a handful of soil?
We gardeners know such things.
Soil ain't soil but the skeletons of billions...
Sure, what we see as humus is the combined breakdown of trees and water mixed from generations and the millenia of turbulent and moon fed movements of life.
And this mixing into the soil of blood and bone is the manure of earth, the perpetual mixing of our ancestors we place into the pots and beds beneath the roots of plants and seedlings.
Look closely and you can see the white slivers of bone, the granules of the infinite ancestral umbilical chords connected to the umpteen lives of people and the things that inspired them.
The soil we walk over we too will become.
The soil speaks to those who still to listen.
"These fingers that turn me over and over I have felt before"
"Not so long ago I felt the wooden waana that turned the soil and dug the goanna from its burrow"
"And these white grains, you would not know it, but I have heard the cry of the humpback and the clicks of the sperm whale, and felt the soft touch of a starfish and felt the explosion of the wave near the shore.
And so, as you plant that rose or petunia, or kangaroo paw remember... it has been planted before, this soil, all of us, but not by you...