The spirit of Country calls.
The red rustic soil of creation spirits
draws soul travellers from diverse places
into the inner recesses of the Kimberley’s tunnel creeks,
cathedral gorges, natural springs, water holes,
habitat of freshwater crocodiles, and home of fading traces of stories
inscribed on rocks by those with eyes of old who read life that traversed
natural and supernatural boundaries — the world of the ancient.

Witnesses of untold narratives etched on fragile cave walls
await translation from the wisdom of the earth,
for the moderns have arrived,
armed with digital cameras and smart phones on the ready
to capture on mini screen secret, sacred stories
of the land’s creative Hand to heal their ailing
souls, not that they fully recognise it yet.

But Country calls, and le-an threads in each individual seeker’s
life story into the Kimberley’s grand narrative:
the fine, intricately balanced and mutually sustainable life
created by an invisible Hand that humanity’s proud mighty steps must treat
with a sense of awe and respect.

Country calls, paradise manifested
by glorious mind blowing sites of splendour.
Custodians of the earth, descendants of first peoples
materialised from behind the boulders to teach spiritual nourishment
and offer guidance to sources of food and medication
from vegetation that abound in the wild
while settler translators try to bridge the chasm
of cultural gaps and continuing breaches of natural law and culture.

Builders of Babel-like towering heights
urged by a want to reach an imagined ultimate ‘heaven’
have a material vision called ‘development’.
But somehow pure materialists only succeed to emerge
as despoilers of the earth’s innate treasures through blasting away,
fracking and industrialising the foundations of natural life.

Since the beginning of time,
the quest for knowledge,
the source of energy and power
animated the journey of the restless.
Alongside them are travelling path seekers of wisdom
who walk the ends of the earth.

Some of us, looking beyond our day-to-day routine,
book wilderness tours, lie inside sleeping bags,
take up the sheer challenge of rolling and unrolling swags
that are laid on open bare fields,
apologetically stumble on glistening cavernous wet stones,
decline kind offers of piggy back lifts —
We want to walk on our own two feet
yet we are fellow soul travellers longing to listen
to the breath of Country, a breath that gasps at times
from trespasses against the Law of the land.

Time has come to unravel the mystery
of our connection to the soul of Country — Kimberley wild life,
our wild open eyes now partly tamed by the revelation
of the wonders of creation.
We hope our next steps will acquire a new spring,
for we have braved the walk into the unknown,
into the territory of our collective souls.
As we bid farewell to Kimberley Country
and disperse back to our home zone,
we return with a re-discovery of our shared inner home.