How is it that days keep coming?
I will stay up here and recite my own grace. Gratitude for that first time where I learned what might be possible to me, when I once thought I would be forever shut off from life.
Stringybark, red gum, blue gum, I give thanks. To know what it is like to ache as a root divining water. What it is to hold time’s soft circumference within me. Thank you for the pleasure-hunger of that journey next to Thea, when I was able to be her canopy.
beten und arbeiten
It was a red-gold valley, gentle-sloped, and when I first saw it, arriving with the Eichenwalds in the dying days of April, it was bronze with kangaroo grass that caressed the waist. Unlike much of the forest across the ranges, the valley was open country, expansive, interrupted only by immense gum trees that drew the eyes skywards and stretched the throat. They stood in weight with arms raised, bearing the knobbed scars of lost branches, bark peeling from gargantuan trunks that soared, twisting upwards, outwards. Some of the gums stood leafless yet screeched white-raw with cockatoos. Others were hollowed. As I walked beside Thea, following a tributary of the river we had passed earlier, I saw that a family had set up home in one of these trees, canvas strung to extend the shelter. Washing draped over nearby fallen branches, drying. I peered in and saw someone sleeping in bedding laid over heaped grass. A ship’s trunk had been turned into a cradle in one corner, the detached lid in use as a table at the entrance, next to a mound of ashes ringed with stones. I placed my hand on the lip of the hollow, on the outside of the trunk. Thought of what it was like to be fleshed with wood, tender-hard and rippled with years.
Not one, but many. Older than old.
‘This must be it,’ Friedrich said, setting the trunk down on the track and taking the hat from his head. Thea and Anna Maria paused, breathing hard. A flock of parrots burst out of a nearby tree and they smiled at each other.
‘We’re here, then,’ Anna Maria said quietly, taking in the valley. ‘A new home.’
Thea swung her burden onto the ground. ‘Someone is coming.’
I turned and saw my father wading through the high grass towards the Eichenwalds. My heart leaped to see him, although I was struck by the way his shirt hung from his shoulders.
‘Welcome, pilgrims,’ my father announced, removing his hat and lifting it in greeting. He wiped his palm on his shirt before shaking Friedrich’s hand. I noticed the dirt sunk deep into his nails. ‘Welcome to Heiligendorf.’ He turned and, fingers to mouth, whistled hard. Soon after, I saw Matthias, followed by Hans, pushing through the grass towards them.
‘Here, boys,’ Papa called, nodding at the Eichenwalds’ belongings. ‘Give them a hand, would you?’
Matthias and Hans greeted Friedrich and Anna Maria, smiled at Thea. She seemed as shocked as I was to see how lean they were. I threw my arms around my brother’s neck as he stooped to pick up the rope handle on the side of the Eichenwalds’ trunk and breathed deeply of him. He looked like Gottlob but smelled as I remembered, of grass and chaff and sweat. I ran a hand down the side of his face, feeling the beginnings of a beard beneath my fingers.
‘Hello, Thea.’ Hans heaved the other side of the trunk into the air and he and Matthias began carrying it along the track. Papa picked up the bundle from Thea’s feet, swinging it onto his shoulder.
Friedrich indicated the nearby campsite. ‘How many are here?’
‘Most now. The first of us settled a month ago, in March. The heat! You remember? But the day we found this paradise, the creek was still flowing . . . Here, you must see what we prepared.’
The Eichenwalds followed my father, looking about them at the campsites spaced regularly along the track. Papa veered left, heading towards a small shelter slouched under a crooked gum tree. It was scarcely more than a shepherd’s hut, made from latticed branches thickened with dried mud and straw.
‘What is this then?’ asked Anna Maria as she ducked her head under the low entryway. It was dark inside, despite the open doorway and the sunlight coming through gaps in the daub. I looked up and saw that a sheet had been pinned in lieu of a ceiling. Someone had painted it with stars.
Papa set down Thea’s bag at the entrance. ‘We began work on it as soon as we finished our journey. The day we first arrived, we raised our hands to the sky and thanked the Lord. The Holy Spirit moved amongst us and we agreed that a church must be built as soon as we had collected all our belongings, before the surveyor had even marked out the allotments, before we had built our own shelters.’