Earth To Earth Poem by Matt Mooney

Earth to Earth

Oh to be as still as the lily pads
Floating in the billabong
And as idle as the upturned boat
Across from me beyond.
If I was a creature of this habitat,
In the sun filled Australian Bush,
I'd like to be that water hen
Who is never really pushed
But skims around discreetly
And only calls out if she must.
I'd consider being a dragon fly
And I'd frolic in the sun
Like they're doing over there;
Sometimes joining with another
Over water in the air.
I could be a Kookaburra-
Now that would be great fun:
When I'd laugh I'd take a pleasure
In startling everyone.
It would be lovely to be a Lorikeet
And feed on nectar and on pollen,
To be a pair forever
With your parrot lover
And to gather with the others
For a chatter on the trees
Just before the fall of night
Before we'd go to sleep.
I wouldn't want to be the wallaby
On the other side of the fence
Who lived incognito over there,
Under cover by the trees so dense
For now that part of the Bush is bare
But the developers don't care;
And he's living on the edge in fear,
Who once I stalked,
Hidden by the dew dropped grass
Just in case that he'd appear-
Which he did, inside a clearing
And looked at me and loped away;
A ride on mower was busy there today.

The silence of the billabong is brittle-
Only broken now and then
By the screech of a galah,
The warbling of a magpie
Or a ‘kak' from the water hen again;
I look across the pond and far beyond
And I can see how ‘earth to earth'
Makes some sense after all-
Since I feel so much part of here
I could go on to be forever young.