Vacationing Down Under: A rhymed essay

An urge of old nomadic restlessness
induces temporary homelessness.

An animus to disconnect by choice
allows a reconnect with primal joys.

Adventuring in endless roads of dust,
accustomed to the laws of getting lost,

we boost our confidence to find the way
at least before the end of any holiday.

The yellow road signs often make us smile,
recurrent wildlife crossings in Australian style.

Clear hiking panels give the history of sites,
the rules of camping setting forth the outback’s rights.

The coastal winds and surf roar on the shore,
while inland bakes the sun, as eagles soar.

The waterfalls bring welcome cool to woods,
while aviary concerts liven up our moods.

We love high mountains, rugged cliffs, majestic trees,
exotic flowers swaying in the breeze,

mysterious billabongs, secluded creeks,
white ibis, kookaburras, black swans with red beaks.

Grey and brown koalas grunt in eucalyptus.
Down in streams and lakes swim skilful platypus.

Red kangaroos with joeys hop about,
black wallabies and wombats don’t come out.

On balmy nights sea turtles come ashore to nest,
they struggle up the tempered sand and have no rest,

until in trance they lay a hundred eggs, year after year.
The mystic task achieved, they turn to sea and disappear.

Green turtles, loggerheads and flatbacks hatch at dawn
in Queensland’s golden beaches.  Instinct drives them on

to seek the light in the horizon, head to sea,
escaping crabs and seagulls in a run to be.

The natives called this weathered land their home,
a habitat to hunt, to fish and roam.

Here lived and loved for sixty thousand years a heart
that pulsates still in music, dance and art.

Rock paintings, etchings feature lizards, crocodiles,
anatomies of rainbow snakes, whose wiles

created hills and billabongs. Bark paintings dream
of barramundis, boomerangs and birds that teem.

Aborigines know nature still and seasons,
live according to ancestral reasons.

We can learn from them the harmony
of cosmic forces and the will to be.

They managed fire, vast forests and the desert sand,
until white settlers came in ships to claim the land.

The settlers brought the cows, the rabbits and the sheep.
They opened mines, built roads, raised buildings steep.

As awesome as the fauna in the parks,
art galleries and orchestras deserve high marks.

The sails of  Sydney’s Opera take us in flight.
Killara’s Seidler house breathes art and light.

There’s music too in chequered cultivated fields,
There’s drama in plantation and in harvest yields,

There’s pride in macadamia, ginger beer, superior wine,
There’s joy in living, mate. “No worries” — Life is fine!

Ephemeral as dappled butterflies,
invigorating as the radiant skies,

vacations mean discovery and learning,
shifting gears and reassessing, dreaming, yearning.

Ethereal as a passing cloud,
ephemeral as silence in a crowd,

vacations hover timelessly,
and soon - too soon - recede in memory.