Secret Directions to Jilliby Farm

Enter beside the hollow log mailbox.
Here the road leads through a profusion of leafy damp shadows.
Wild ferns are the underbrush where Fairy wrens flit from the slightest presence.

This driveway winds by towering bush gums flanked on the other side by a paddock
thick with Kikuyu and mixed grasses.
A dam is the centre focus and wild ducks veer away as cars approach

Way down as far as the vision stretches is a copse that beckons with mystery.

Walk now, along contours formed by the water rush of many rains
Feel the stress of life melt from every cell.
Birdsong has already worked its magic on your being -as well as sunlight on your skin and earth scents in your lungs.
Your heartbeat has fallen into the rhythm of the elements around.

Into the copse- you’ll look up to a brilliant sky through branches
of tiny, spiky melaluca leaves.
Imagine giant broccoli and you are Alice looking for a Cheshire Cat.
Your hands will linger on the tree trunks woven with plimsol lines of grass from
many years of floods.

These trees are brothertwined rising from spongy islands formed from countless accumulations of their own dead leaves.
Placid waters will reflect them Narcissuslike as clouds hang in their branches.
Water lilies will hide black roots in squishy clay mud.
Following the small islands of land, jumping from bank to bank you will see tiny wild flowers, trailing vines and wild maidenhair ferns.

Suddenly you will happen upon a huge grey Charoloais Bull grazing on a giant clump of grass. He will ignore you as you pass if you circle wide enough.

Look over now to the homestead on high ground. It beckons with a fireplace for frosty mornings and a swimming pool for scorching summers.
You’re in the Dooralong Valley and a Golden eagle soars above so large it can
take an unprotected lamb.
Someone saw a huge black snake here in a pile of rubble, left by some land clearers.
Overnight, humongous spiders will build webs between trees to catch you unaware.

But not all is scary here. It only heightens beauty. In the pink dawn grey wallabies, with a sun halo along their fur, will graze on dew-laden grass. Kookaburras will kookalaugh and fill the valley with their jollity.
Suzanne Delaney