The falcon on the headlands
Here,
in these sandstone walls,
You reign
without a crown,
And you
look at us intruder souls
With a
smug, perhaps a frown
Why
does it feel that you are king?
Your raptor
wings or hearts?
While
we are made to feel misfits,
Unbelonging
of these parts
The peregrine
falcon’s stare of steel
Has a
murmur in the seas,
It
stays above, with wings aloft
Motionless
in the breeze
No regent,
king I need to be,
This land
flows in my veins,
These
feathers crafted from herein
Red
earth and summer’s rains
But it is
the wilderness foremost
That
forms the strongest ties,
These
fuelled wings reverberate
With
the land and all its guise
The frothing
seas, the hungry waves
The
winds that sculpt the stone,
The
timelessness, the ferocity
Though each
of us is lone
It is
this untamed spirit here
That
brings us all so close
Something
that you can never know
In your
human joys and woes
(Though
there were men some aeons back
Who chose
to read the skies,
They
have left, now all you know
Is
greed, avarice and lies)
So as long
as tides crash on these cliffs
This
land will stay awake,
But to
feel that heart, you need to yield
And
forget your gives and take
Until then,
you’ll come and go
Bystanders
that you are,
So
close, and yet this land will choose
To stay
aloof, afar
The
peregrine falcon zooms away,
We’re
left on sacred land
Perhaps
it’ll wait until that day
Its song
we understand...
28th
July, 2025
The
lines above were inspired when I spotted the peregrine falcon – the world’s
fastest bird on the sandstone cliffs in the south-eastern part of Sydney – most
renowned for its world famous walks from Bondi to Coogee (and further beyond to
Maroubra, Malabar and the adjoining headlands).
The
walk is inspiring, ensconced with pretty beaches and dazzling houses, but it is
the wilderness and rawness of nature that appeals to me the most – the wild
waves of the Pacific crashing onto vertiginous ochre cliffs, gnawed by winds
over millennia forming spectacular formations and designs. As you walk farther
and farther away from the townships, you will land at the Malabar Headland
National Park that cuts off the human influence and you will feel a sense of timelessness,
that this is exactly how this part of the world was, hundreds, maybe thousands
of years ago - unperturbed by human hands, wild, savage and primal, fed by the ferocity
of the winds and the waves.
It is
then when you spot the peregrine falcon that you will feel that the bird alone resonates
with the wilderness, while we are unworthy interlopers, desperately trying to
steal moments of experience not meant for us. I have spent hours sitting alone
on these headlands, listening to the crashes of the Pacific under a glistening sun,
patiently waiting for that majestic bird, the falcon, arcing across the skies,
inspecting like a warden the land beneath, ruling like a true monarch. And reminding
us that we need to cleanse more of ourselves to be truly worthy of this ancient
land…
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