This document provides an imaginative first-person perspective of an Indigenous man standing by a brook on the edge of a swathe of tea-tree scrub. It describes the natural surroundings and views in front of and around him. It then contrasts this with a vision of how the area will be developed into a city over time, with constructed buildings, roads, and infrastructure replacing the natural environment. The man senses the impending changes but does not fully comprehend them. The document laments the loss of the natural environment and indigenous way of life, but also sees potential for reconciliation if the city acknowledges and respects its indigenous roots and history.

1. IIInnndddiiigggeeennnooouuusss CCCiiitttyyy
Well … here we are … and there we were. Among it are a pair of feet
tuned like unto eardrums to the ground listening
and feeling the ephemeral familiars and the new events heralding.
The feet unclad, well travelled callous and easily reflexed to
stealth health and fun above the soils and leaf crunch of a well-
watered territory of awesome multiseason dynamics jeweled with
living intrinsic, wafting in air, currents, rustles, bubbles and
nothing missing. Nothing missing. Maybe another abalone
shellfish … yes, that would make the family happier after a long
journey back south. The tall island walker, eyes lofty above an ant

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scurrying over a mountainous big toe, not only standing but
being at a stage of his motion and sweaty from pursuit of a furred
food, is present on sloping land at the edge of a swathe of tea-tree
scrub beside a pure brook that was far wider than his leap
potential. To the side, glassy flowed reflections of tall tall trees
lightly swaying at the tips way up there in the breeze bearing
prahna from vast ocean westage carrying through to the much
loved east. His eyes are seeing currently north-east across the
tidal brook estuary - which is shared by another small brook
entering from the far side - past well rooted aged deep blue green
brown trees casuarinas fronded. An eagle bird settles talons into a
salmon fish near a shore distant even by canoe, across a
respectable river flowing increasingly deep and itself engrossed
in the salty flavor of the sea. Close in his gaze is a small island by
which the bracken brook waters joined that salted deep. He could
shimmy across the brook bank, along the wet flattish sandspit
and rock-hop across there to join the family, old and young

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breasted and chested smiled and disgruntled, at the treasured fire
brought by ember stick from immemorial intergenerational
elsewhere.
Being here is beautiful, relating it to other parts, a day, five days,
a moon away around and back; all of which he knows well. He
feels it, he doesn’t think it – not at all … he doesn’t read – words
… no idea. He stood firm a moment unaware to interpret the vast
amount of what his feet could hear, enlivened through elder,
brother and neighbour stories of huge canoes with pale people of
other tongues at the ocean edges - behind the local worms,
minerals and mountain echoes - emanating from an antipodean
activity where two numbed leather-clad feet stood dead deaf on a
squashed cockroach. These feet’s ears up on their hatted head
hear the rhythmic lapping of brine indeed on ocean-ready
planked hull. There are gull birds there too, but additionally on
shore is immense peopled activity and among it his family is
swaddled in and among many small townhouses allowing only
smaller squares of sunlight and one-sided fire. The eyes
everywhere in these vaguely title-boundaried built ownerships
are absorbed in skyblocked constructed cupboards, hot plates,

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pump taps, oil lamps, constructed seats and beds and tables – all
secured by shelters of cooked clay and sawn nailed wood. The
earth here at the other side is further stifled under the leathered
feet by constructed floor, required against the soil exposed, with
its domestic issues, by trampling on virgin grass a generation ago.
Stifled and missing here; as the pavement grows the consensus
view notices nothing missing. A molecule of smoke blown up
down and round from the southern ocean finds thunderstruck
company with that belching from coalfired chimneys among
thousands of houses and tooled workplaces stores and market
places all of fixed abode. And clothes; seeking washing machines
to free them from smelly sweat and washboard wear. There they
were …. well on their way … ahoot and hey hey. Something has
made them well on the way to solar cells, extended leisure,
reading screens and optic conduits …. all will spring from an
earthy heart, continent or island. But not all earthy beginnings
find attention to such things. Maybe it’s King Billy’s cousin by
marriage standing firm a while longer on the brookbank near this
tiny island off an island.

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Through his feet came no comprehension that the hand of the
land of the bustling city was about to clasp his own - we trust so
and as it should - in this raw natural territory of firm notional
boundaries securing hunting, people & personal effects among
and across an unowned common land. The hand arrived, several
moons later in a gripping of crew assistance in crossing a plank of
English oak from a boggling huge canoe with white flapping
wings of recent, he’d heard, moored upflow in the salty river,
onto that island, as it conveniently rose steep & deep – the family
camp, now elsewhere up the little brook but only two minutes by
worn track and mouheneennan (the people) swiftfeet and in sight
of the old little island-camp’s biodegrading coals and shells. There
was no comprehension but his feet always remembered that spot
on that bank in their nibberloone country. The spot was and
remains locally pivotal between the big river, the two little ones,
the little island (little toe of kananyi, the mountain) and the nape
in which he later camped; there were fossils gondwanian and
they remain there now. There were shells and bone, stone shaped
on the far east ocean edge and brought home and the ground’s all
but invisible patina of pattering listening feet large and small,

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busy and leisurely – mostly all still there resting all covered and
changed and shifted.
This teller knows you know the story of how if he, our man, was
still standing in that spot, the hand that should and may well
have extended eventually would have buried him to his thighs
with stone fill drawn from his nearby echoing patina-ladened
playground, capped with cream coloured macadam rock from
elsewhere and more eventually again with a hands depth of
bitumen layered hardstand from God knows where and on top of
that a grotty black soot from automotive brake shoes. In there too
came an exciting moment when an imported working elephant let
go a faecal pat, opening thought and freshening the broader
nature. There he’d be standing in the shiftings of time, no idea of
the sign ‘Campbell Street’ in front of a huge high face of biscuit-
coloured brick casting shadow and blocking blue clouded
birdways. The biscuit brick was broken by the elephants tailed
stern as it penetrated its way along the causeway. Our man’s
spine shivered a little as he stood there clinging to his home and
the rock-hop across to the little island – it had grown, the
rockhop, or rather it had been sat upon with relocated local rocks

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to make easy walk and carriage from that flapping planked vessel
to the flapping canvassed humpies up on the rise; all under the
name of some key person, antipodean and not even anywhere
near here – and under the captains hat felty and folded. Nothing
at all like mudded dreadlock, wallaby skin or sea salted black
curls. At his left the sparkling brook was grotted and buried to
become a bustling delighted market place and then a city hall
(with capitals ha) … and snappy little domes on the corners. Over
his shoulder a colorful little pub and over the other, ‘the’ new
‘government’ built their port waterside interiors – leaving a little
patch of the actual original brookbank shining through gasping
for air; for it lived down there. Directly behind him and aligned to
the rockhop runs a bitumen ribbon named macquarie street, with
capitals and with white thermoplastic markings, traffic lights and
concrete edging and trucks and mind warping coloured car forms
running through him and onward by the biscuit coloured
morning-sky-blocking bricked interiors. That big box full of
rooms where people would go and then come and go to other
interiors and cars and buses all blinkered, at least three quarters
blinkered, conditioned and even blinded by the trap of interior
that has grown, being rooted in the discovery of ironsteel, in old

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London town stamped like an ink stamp cloning an odd
phenomenon over the natural awe here in unviolated unsullied
gondwanian raw. His spine shivered and his feet never forgot
that spot and never listened to the woolen rugs in the govenor’s
office though he’d heard of tribal elsewheres where his kind had
supped with the like, only to be painfully ruffled by the mutual
spook in life. The governor’s advisor never thought to heritage
list the Rock Hop sandspit as the umbilical of the pretty city of
hobart. That umbilical, stomped across by deaf feet in bitumen
soles hearing a drummer who originally wants mostly to make a
more horrible interior to hold lots of London people in prison,
bound by that ironsteel that shaped the axes saws and room
boom. No these people were not like that – they heritage listed
the city hall but; the city hall of course, they heritage listed the
city hall and thankyou. But no not the Rock Hop nor kananyi’s
little toe. Dam the little redback spiders and pretty little native
orchids and sleek sunned blue tongues all in an indigenous urban
heart right there - an indigenous urban heart … right there.
There’re plenty more elsewhere, for their wilderness was always
just a barrel roll away, and then another barrel roll, and then a
can’s throw - but now land and ocean are drudge dry

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underpinned by that aforeto unheard ironsteel. They brought on
their beautiful boats all this interior, the internalised (even on the
wild ocean) and too the horrible bacterial sully of sniffle cough
fever and die and their grotty fermented fester of cholera, sewage
and sullage. The beginnings of the dirty armpitted city that
enabled the perfect flexing sturdy of a ballet floor, the metal
technical of saxophone, the huge glass window, the sleek liquid
display, dimmer switch, little black box of music and the
awesome high end of peopled society and economy the alfresco
coffee.
The teller knows you may be conditioned and blinkered. The
Firsts of kananyi’s land scratch their heads; certainly they know
rudimentary lintel frames of sticks and bark, fully naturally
earthy nurtured – complete with webs but only if left too long.
But this new sharply arrised, gabled box sealed, light-painted
interior, eight crisp three-planed-corners at floor and ceiling
awash with novelty and sitting in rich natural context; squares,
prisms, right angles, doors, window rectangles and a cupboard
drawer holding a match-box - something fallen to Earth. So many
people, for so many hours of so many days for so many years, are

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subject to the quiet bombardment of so many three-planed-
corners. The corners counterplace the circular belt of sky that
blends with the horizon below it and the dome of the heavens
above. That belt remains there, thank God. Maybe it’s shrouded
by depleted over-head forest leaves and life, distant it mooches
warmly present, bombarding orgone glow, behind the flat white
ceiling, walls and that skewed corrugated roof of unknowing. It is
very significant: increasingly many people, for so very many
hours of so many days for so many years, are subject to the quiet
bombardment of so many three-planed-corners. The
roombooming corners rather counterplace the powerfully
sweeping belt of sky that blends with the horizon below and the
awesome dome of the fabled heavens above. That belt remains
there, thank God. Depending on where you are it may be
shrouded by over-head bushland leaves and life, distant it
mooches warmly present, bombarding orgone glow, behind the
shade of the flat white ceiling, walls and that skewed corrugated
roof of unknowing. The tight little boxes were cracking like egg
shells and surprised lizards were too slow for the hawks. The
interior with the three-planed-corners moulds our attention
habits; into forms that differ to those habits made from

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wholesome embrace of the dome of the horizon. Closing the door
may bring a touch of adversity. We need the solid tactile mooch
of a hand-polished huon-pine bannister spokeshaved tree limb
flow through the windows of the eight cornered white box
interior but we often have to drive many miles to properly find it
– and then we must return.
He never felt the governors carpet nor saw the captain‘s cabin and
never inkled an understanding of the nuances of those
antipodean vibrations. He dreamed that night of a thick
sandstone box crowding two men; it was hovering and buffeted
clang and tear trickle in ocean cloud arcing across the world and
was supplied in the meanest of ways by uniformly clad key
jangling owners of land and things. It bought death to his and
sprouted anew; an island urbia - from such a distressing
concerning gene pool comes a new era Tasmanian who would
starve before discovering the bushland berries while realising to
love what they destroyed and to fight for truly just politics void of
blindness and greed. If we can believe in primeval slime and a
bolt of lightning, here we have it again. If we don’t we are
quickened by the truth itself and culture on; discovering the

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idiosyncrasies of natural peopled place - the very same that the
british bulldog, dutch, french and who knows else came upon.
More treasure now missing than what they brought; if we count
life, local wisdom and the hindsight of valuing for a city centre
the soul of what was already here. An authentic identity of place
supplanted by a synthetically propped exotic.
That place, where that ant ran where this First’s footprints may be
seen, by hyper sensitive detective technology – that place could
well do with a small reminder more powerful than the local
cenotaph. One of those ever over-riding cynics, swoop landing
above that reminder, grasping with one claw a blood red lamp-
pole arm, the temporal winner in the warped humour of a
tharking black crowbird, a capital M on the oil patched white
paper bag in its other claw, watched atop an acrylic cultural
colour banner, a living latte at a table. It looked around for peace
enough, then both eyes and face into the bag to beak one of the
potatofries sneak-stolen from that nearby innocent afflicted living
latte. Afflicted; with any of many social disease and new
environmental chemistries - greeds, cholesterols, social, mental
and sexual maladjustments, tumours, blinkers, blindness, mind

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noise; throwing off the balance needed for a humming mental
electric dynamic burgeoning beauty city enjoying the happy
acknowledgement of all of all creatures in a wonderful wonderful
world. In this context our man with hearing feet in a small city
with foreign antennae is remembered via culturally established
funds - a life size huon pine laser cut figure, feet on his
homeground standing thigh deep in a set bitumen river mid
macquarie and mid market place gazing north-east through the
misplaced grand chancellor hotel wondering why. Why ever
didn’t they design the hotel lobby to value the kananyi water, the
Rock Hop and the little island - at least. Surely oh surely can be
seen even commercial value in this. The cultural funders followed
through with a big glazed arch where the brook flow penetrates
the macquarie façade, interpreted water flow to an internal
natural water-featured expanse, muraled, written and grown
imagery through rocks to bitumen, café and boutique dining and
hotel bookings and through the other side to the docks. The
traffic can just slow, just bloody-well slow down … to go around
the lasercut pine memory of a presence there today. Let it slow
and go around; ‘it’ the traffic, the drivers and passengers ay. Give
them a chance to break the humdrum and breath the air to realise

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how close they are to the little cove and that local geographic
pivot to which they no longer drive by blind and traffic blinkered.
Break the traffic chain saw. Throw up four prominent supportive
markers one on each the far campbell/macquarie corners, one
behind him by the old pub and one across macquarie there aside
the port buildings and the original bank still exposed and treed
because it lived down there. This will mark a rectangle place for
generations to feel the soul of the meeting of two peoples, of land
meeting sea, of vast ocean powers, of bio-geomorphic nurture of
their little growing city. It will mark that under there is the Rock
Hop far more important to this local place than the sweet old lady
city hall; she will grow new use from this memory. It will mark
the buried brook once oar navigable to wellington-court upstream
and down, a wet link to the wetter out there and the silver flow
back up the mountain. The pole markers are high to be seen from
franklin square and central cove. They will caricature the
characters of their place – one pole huge felt hatted for the ship’s
captain, one woollied for our man, the other two for water and
land far and here. The cultural kneejerk of the impassioned
carried the day to a healing hey hey, hey hey … ay.

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Another created synthetic prop but this: to authentic people and
place at the heart of city settlement in indigenous land; the same
in cities the world-over where the pompous have perched and
traded soul of place for trinkets or else. That place where cities are
born, flowering synthetic constructions with places within,
blooms to become islands of types and servers for the lands
between, lands which indeed spread to the places between the
flowers – all looking to rosiness and identity where the agonies
dare not fly.
Fin (edited 13/7/15)