McDonnell Ranges, Alice Springs

In the beginning

I was here.

Long ago in the Dreaming,

when all that was

was sea and stillness,

I was here,

waiting.

When my time came, 

giant spasms shook the sea,

churned and strained, thrusting upwards

in cataclysmic shudders.

They ripped the sea's womb wide open
and flung me out into this world.

Mine was a violent birth,
but I was a long time young.

You didn't see me then, 

when I was young

and partly hidden high beyond the clouds,

my face all smooth, my body strong,

rising imperious, abruptly sheer

from endless flatness far below.

I was a roof for all the earth,

a sanctuary for those beneath,

who cherished me.

You didn't see me either, as I aged.

when the fierce winds came

and the storms raged and the rain coursed

deep into my limbs

etching furrows in my skin,

sheering offspring near and far,

as I began to falter

down the millennia.

Now that you've come

like all the others, 

and looked and wondered at this place,

remember that I'm old, like you,

grown heavy, wrinkled, as I'm weathered

slowly downwards,

in buckled, folded, jagged slide

towards the earth,

from where beneath

 my home is calling.

Yet on this day I still stand watch 

and talk to you, who stops and listens,

and contemplates how brief a stay,

is given us from dust to dust.

You feel my guardian spirit's touch,

enduring deep and long.

I feel your sense of kindred fate,

that all must end some day.

Remember then when your time comes,

the centre's heart will take you in

and I will point the way.

For until time itself is done,

I'll still be here to guard this land.