Last night I watched with friends the lunar eclipse
slowly take away from earthly gaze
half the slice of the almost full moon.
Guardian spirits leapt from a hidden wilderness,
signalling restlessness from changes
afoot in the shape of things to come.

Last Saturday morning, my grassroots philosopher friend
in the Courthouse market drew simple strokes
on the sand…of Kimberley’s six seasons…
how the land speaks through the human spirit.
We are merely temporary dwellers of time and space
bound to fade away, he said,
…like a glimpse of a stream of light, I thought.

My camera eye exposed a kaleidoscope of colours
reflected on the turquoise oceanic rocks and
on the terrain of my otherwise dreamless night.
I am fully awake now, my imagination wandering,
anticipating with excitement and awe
next Saturday’s Lurujarri walk.

How will the guardian spirits deal with me
and my curious escapade into the uncanny?
How will the State’s notion of progress disturb
the balance of ancient trails, wild blossoms,
dinosaur footprints and the bones of lawgivers
that have gone back to the sand dunes and the rocks?

Will the mythical snakes of the song cycles
slither from the pindans down to the coastline
to pronounce their judgment?
What stories of creation and destruction
will echo through the entire continent
if Walmadan is taken away by stealth?

Questions that yield no answers perhaps
until my feet straddle between two cultures
that try to co-exist; perhaps until I walk
the trail of spirits, alive and dead.

Has this restless, half-lit moon light eclipsed
my daytime sensibilities?