Jonathan Kimberley & pura-lia meenamatta (Jim Everett)

meenamatta lena narla puellakanny : Meenamatta Water Country Discussion

A Writing and Painting Collaboration

water by Jim Everett – pura-lia meenamatta

moinie knew that to create life

would mean that life would need

a common thread to life

with country and place so that

each life would have a role

yet even though life would be

many different kinds they all

would need the ‘blood’ of life

itself a thing across everything

it touches like a fluid

that would be life

this all clear fluid ‘blood’  was created

and moinie created everything

with it so that life’s blood

was made ‘water’ so to travel

through everything and bond it

as ‘life’ that lived with life

so that the trees could drink

and the possums and birds

and humans also lived with life

that connected with all-life

from the skies to the subterranean

awash with life’s blood as one

big family that sustained life itself

and so it was with life that water

is alive to touch us all in this life

where people began to grow

alongside the animals and plants

and with reptiles and fish and

all-life with the minutest to the largest

of living animals yet there are insects

or lice or moss on a rock that is

touched by life’s water within and

on their outer surface in all ways

not forgetting the water clouds or

the finest mist or fog that carries life

with its tiny drops of life’s blood

for creeks and rivers into lakes and sea

and so people grew with a brain

that grew intellect and skills for making

things that could be good for all-life

or destructive to many living families

and so the world grew until country was

home for all-life in a water world

with a water flow in their blood veins

all the while the people journeyed their way

for life and connection to the spiritual-all

as we are in life with each other through water

thus moinie could see strong quiet water

and people who’s journey rested on respect

at a cost beyond creation of all things

of our world in protection of heritage and spirit

in the forests and waterways of life’s blood

traveling in its all-clear colours that mirror

meenamatta being clear-felled for money

until only the money we cannot drink

must barter for life from a water controller

yet it is my blood country from a time before

people would want to take it all heeding nothing

that it does when trees are gone and life is still

in the taking of country from family custodians

while a society will care not that water will cry

with dry tears of drought destruction despair

from the cutting of connections to the death of

an all-clear water to an all-clear country

of the all-life that we are family through

our old world where all-life was with family

meenamatta country is blood country for clans

almost lost in the colonial nation of people

to forget the memory of our first-nations

where all life were citizens of the greater family

to take a place for life for to sustain it with all

family members who would look after you

and the life is all-life of family to one and all

as it is in meenamatta country with the clans

who belong as one under the spiritual-all of life

with our connector in water through water and blood

in common theme as family of our blood country

thus we celebrate our life in connection with all

we live on in our meenamatta country with its life

for all things where the magic of truth in water

keeps our journeys alive in the true essence of life

as meenamatta sniffs in the wind our presence

with everything in the gullies and rivers where rain clouds

visit us all in the blue tiers and over beyond to winifred river

in country full with plangermairreenner pepper and

meenamatta tomatoes on a full moon creek running with

water’s arteries down under where our roots of connection

take us to other places in the darkest rivers and creeks through

the veins of country yet with water as an all clear colour

reflecting the black where light has no place and on until it lifts

as a spring to become traveling water where we see it in all

colours as a mirror of life it keeps and beholds in its

tentacles of running water and the clouds where it travels

with life’s blood to connect elsewhere over lands and seas

beyond mountains and into deep gullies and homes for others

as with ochre it is with our tomatoes and peppers or man-ferns

the fullness of life as blood juice red yet with ashes

or blue yet grey is life we see in blood juice cloud

all the while moving on over and through where the spirits

feel its life in the mist and fog until meeting itself in the

deeper waters where ria-warrawah will taste its blood

of life to know only too well a memory of creation in its

bloodlines and the arteries of water where the spirit cannot

journey yet knows its bloodline has touched all-life

in the many strong places of country away in quiet places

where our all-life has survived on the land and water of mennamatta

where water is clean and the forests alive as mist passes and cloud wets

dry country where water is scarce for all uses that people make

meenamatta will survive even those who will take the trees

forget the water and kill  winifred river and its big gums

country is place and space with the all-life

where king-ferns stand over man-ferns

on winifred river’s steep banks in native forest

that cups big boulders on rocky floors

until water falls from cloudy skies

to journey down in rising cascade

to cover the big boulders in their cups

as the king-ferns look over the creek-veins

feeding the river-journey along steep ridges

that slope from the blue tiers

running faster along its old trails

the water drops its flotsam passengers

of trees boughs sticks and leaves

all the while with lowering cascades

flowing away across meenamatta country

to once again expose the boulder tops

until the boulder-cups emerge and dry

yet stay with space in water-mats of moss

as winifred settles into smaller water-veins

to create magical shapes with froth and bubble

to bring all of the air-collected aromas

that communicate with the wind-swept leaves

or fronds of ferns and rocky shapes

creations in water-windows of small still pools

looking like mobile ground

mirrored on water

on a huge moving country

of water that hides the all-clear water

that travels over in and through

meenamatta country place and space

as an invisible spirit of all-life

the clear water is all-clear forever

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