The Mullet Run

The air and sea have made a deal to soothe the sweet Pacific.
Awareness is everywhere… in the rain drops, on the dripping foliage of the
wattle trees and in the memory of the soft shelled crab awaiting his new
carapace.
Awareness is everywhere and becomes tangible. There is the scent of
the wet burnt eucalypts hanging in the air…hanging like that dream I
failed to remember even though I thought I had.
Birdsong and happiness splits the air as the world says goodbye to summer.
This is a bounteous place. A place pleading to tell a secret. A secret
involving gravity and latitude; salinity and atmosphere.
The summer rains are finished and the mullet are coming.
From the backwaters of creeks and lakes, rivers and estuaries, flows this
silver stream, with twitches of fins and twists of tails.
In every year of my life this ancient rite has occurred. Year after year, the
dance of silver is refined until the choreography is more heart stopping than
any recollection, any act of love, any prayer granted.
Lakes and river and all waterways take colour as the weeks of summer rain
cease… browns and grey, greens and umbers as the salt water becomes brackish.
Shoals of mullet have been growing quietly and undisturbed in the safety of the
waterways. It is time. The collective culture of this species now shows its
willingness to pit itself against life.
If you are lucky, your eyes will be filled with silver. This is the time of
dreams, of magic….a time of waiting and remembering the laughs of years gone
by.
Mullet. The humblest of fish! They come determined to reach the open seas.
A stream of solid silver makes its way out. A marine Milky Way. A stream so
solid you could stride across in heavy boots or tap shoes.. Wreathes of silver
scales wash upon the shores while this monster flash of living light makes its
own music as it snakes into the bay.
The urgency to leave one phase of life to pursue the next is a statement…a
lesson to all of us. These strips of mercury must mate only in the open sea.
They fill the day with their light and endless reflections and the following
morning we find the shimmering, glistening waves of silver scales washed
up, abandoned like clothes not needed…jewels spilt on the sand.