Moving

 

Up above the trees up above the sea, all day we sit identifying moving beings.  The fluffy-chested bird with wings of bark-slab markings, hard jut of beak, moves from a bare branch for food-territory-something, returns to the branch, all day. The kookaburra reappears at the picture window of the house, without a sound. One of us humans moves along the decking carrying teapot and cup, to an advantageous viewing position, comfortable clothing moving easily. This human is readily identified as Carol, book and notebook on a nearby table. A troop of head-upright tail-downbeat canterers move from nowhere across the somewhere below us, smooth and emphatic their thumps and lopes and darts and graces. In another place, we would find it hard to believe we were identifying kangaroos by the seaside amidst slopes of houses, but here this is readily normal. They stand at the sunny area further along, staring back towards us, or something, one with a joey in her pouch. They move someplace else while we’ve stopped watching them. High untended callistemons move with a waving motion unlike the usual breeze where along their branches grey-brown speckled birds poke the flowers with determination. At this distance from the windows, it’s tricky to identify which kind of wattlebird is under review, nor do we have time, as they are on to the next callistemon down the slope and out of view.  Red- or yellow-, grey and brown: something. From a corner of one of the picture windows scrambles a spindly knot of tiny agile legs, activated by the presence of a blot on the landscape moving too close for comfort towards its airy mesh of kitchen. This time death is avoided, the black blob of fly moving vaguely away along the sill, averts an end in the spider’s net. Simple pleasures of passive observation go on for hours, the sliding wire doors left open for air to circulate and the surf below sounding into beach and reef at the mouth of the Kennett River. Unquestionably, the yellow question marks of the cockatoo just landed on the railing ask, so what’s on the menu today?  Singular identification becomes habit, such that it’s a jolt to observe a being moving for whom we have no instant name. We could exhaust ourselves identifying the exact title of every butterfly. They skip past, seemingly without a care. The black curve, curving straight under geraniums as we descend the steps, it’s enough to say skink, even if they’re not, a skink. Insects moving above the grass, and other beings, can take a lifetime to name accurately. Up above the sea, leisurely identification is but prelude to knowledge of the patterns of existence moving their bodies through air and earth and water, mindful of the next movement someplace, sometime, somewhere safe. Up in the house a phone rings, news comes through, day opens out, or changes in an hour as we prepare for the next movement, turning away from all our casual observations. Another human is identified moving though the house towards her yoga on the decking. It’s Bridie, commenting on how nice the cool air is through the house.