Connection

I may not know how to care
for Country
but the more I press
my bare feet onto the earth,
breathe its scents
and listen to its sounds

surely, a minute more sense
will creep in,
bringing me

an achingly slow step closer
to connection, to right-relation,
with Country
and so with myself.

We are Country
Caring for Country
is caring for ourselves.

We are no more than
the earthworms that turn the soil
and no less than
the trees that breathed our biosphere
into being.

The earth lives through us
experimenting with life
like the tentacles of an Octopus.