Eungedup: A Wetland Summer Diary is a new collection of poems from GILES WATSON. Through evocative prose and lyric verse, Watson documents life in the teeming Eungendup wetlands on the south coast of Western Australia. Read on for a poem.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Nestled between Albany and Denmark in the Great Southern region of Western Australia, Eungedup is brimming with vibrant life, yet also threatened by developers. Drawn to this biodiverse wonderland, Watson’s immersion in the wetlands mirrors his own path to healing.

His diary entries through the hot Noongar seasons of Kambarang, Birak and Bunuru record teeming life as the wetlands await seasonal renewal and the coming of rain.

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EXTRACT

19 December 2022
Northwest Wetland (Browns Road entrance)

I walk here with my friend in silence
holding aloft a voice recorder – catching
calls I cannot yet identify – songs of plangent
wetness – tentative probings into sound –
passionate peepings – clucks and chatters –
swelling resonant utterances of frogs.

My friend has told me that she would need to take magic mushrooms to achieve the heightened state of consciousness that is triggered instantly and unbidden in me by the slant of light through gumleaves, or the glimpse of a dragonfly’s wing. I grew up an only child, and with no sisters or brothers with whom I could compare my experience, always thought that this chemically unassisted, entirely legal high was normal, but she says that most people only find the vibrancy through the use of seriously intoxicating hallucinogens. And I, who can be sent tripping just by looking very closely at the way the soft strands of a feather hold together, am surrounded here by stimuli that could easily send me skyward.

A flock of Carnaby’s Cockatoos traverses
with cries that seem to etch the sky
with echoes – and as the water – thick
with writhing tadpoles – wells about
my wellingtons – I feel it welling up
within me also – wildness and the wild swift
adoration – solitude not solitude but
obliteration of every human scheme
in the hemmed-in sap-green texture
of the reeds.

I have not dared to feel this
for what seems like an aeon – this quiet
elation – this shedding of self and all concerns –
as songs of Reed Warblers lift the cold leaden
burden of being human in this remorseless
age of extinction. For here is no extinction –
only teeming. I shuffle through puddles
afraid to tread on Tadpoles – contrite that I
must ruffle surfaces or stir a cloud of mud.

I feel my eyes grow wide with watching – my ears
attuned to frequencies they had forgotten –
and everything that lives and breathes and
has ever lived and breathed is here – here –
here in Eungedup – breathing again through
stomata – gills – spiracles or lungs – and I
who had forgotten how ever to inhale
am given breath. I turn to see my friend
who perhaps for the first time sees me truly alive.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Giles Watson is a writer and teacher of English and Drama who lives in Albany/Kinjarling, WA. Born in England, he migrated to Australia at the age of one, grew up in Canberra, and returned to live in Britain for 18 years, completing a doctoral thesis on British cultural and religious history during the Second World War. There, he grew fascinated with ancient landscapes, writing prolifically in response.

He has a long-standing fascination with natural history, mediaeval texts, folklore and mythology, and he has worked as a volunteer in wildlife rehabilitation, specialising in orphaned and injured owls. He has also written songs with Albany singer–songwriter Simone Keane.

Giles is the author of several published works, including the libretto for Mimma: A Musical of War and Friendship, performed at the Regal Theatre in Perth and Cadogan Hall in London; A Witch’s Natural History (Troy Books), a book of essays on the folklore of natural history; and a large body of poetic work, both self-published and in literary journals. Giles is also the editor of Ten Poems About Butterflies (Candlestick Press).

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