Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 14:36:43 -0500 From: Phanny Subject: [WRITERS] SUB: CONTEST: Wirraway dawn (fwd) Wirraway dawn There is a stillness that settles over the valley in the minutes just before the dawn. The quiet seems magnified because you know you're the only person awake. The other counselors and the kids won't be up for another hour. It's just you, the horses snuffling in the corral, and morning, about to break. The old, weathered log isn't too uncomfortable. The air isn't too chill - just barely cold enough for breath to mist. The sweater your mother knitted smells wet and woolly and comforting, and only a little itchy, and you decide to keep that sweater forever, even if it gets old and moth -eaten, because it was with you on that last morning. You sit and listen, willing yourself to drink in every detail, knowing that you won't see this again, not in your lifetime. You may have an opportunity to come back, but it won't be for the dawn. So your eye stares at the dew-covered grass at your feet, blades so long and a deeper green than you thought grass could be. You let you gaze wander down the stone road, gleaming in the vestige of night, white gravel shining. From your vantage point, you can see the creek, swollen by weeks of rain. Usually, not more than a trickle, it very nearly went to the belly of the pny you were riding, just yesterday. You hold your breath, afraid to move as you see not one, not two, but six kangaroos make their way to drink from the water. You wonder what the mob is doing down from the top paddock, and then curse that you didn't bring your camera out with you. Dotted on the hill side, between ghost gums and acacias, are the spiny bursts of vegetation called yuccas. They're in bloom, and their flowers cluster on the high, narrow stems that rise out from the shock of razor sharp leaves. You hear the birds chittering, can see them darting from one yucca to the next, bright parrots and rosellas, amazing reds and greens. The dawn chorus of Willy Wagtails begins, their lilting warbles echoing and bouncing. Further up, the hill flattens off where the top paddock starts. Most of it was cleared sometime during the second world war, used as a runway. But it was never paved, and tussock grasses have reclaimed the area. You still have some small splinters in you cheek where you went face-first into an acacia, the night before. The whole camp was up the top, playing 'Storm the lantern': the Hiders pressing close to the ground, hiding in the yucca cover, creeping towards the center lantern, where each hit signified a point for their side. The Seekers, keeping vigil, diligent in their patrols, making certain that not many Hiders got though. And you, caught up in the game, knowing it would most certainly be the last time you played it, flinging yourself into a wattle bush when a group of Seekers came rustling by. But they didn't find you, and you stormed the lantern, and that was worth a face full of wooden needles. Finally, the sun breaks over the top paddock, and in an instant, the hills turn to quicksilver, dew taking on a mercurial sheen. The kangaroos have gone, the wagtails are competing with the riot of cockatoos, and a breeze brings to you the scent of grass and horses and flowers and peace. Behind you, you hear the slam of a door. The others are waking. Your solitude is finished, as is the magic of this Wirraway dawn. Your camera was forgotten, but in your mind is etched the memory of images that will be with you forever.