Bush blossoms by Life Member, Mr Louis A Coutts

Bush blossoms

by Life Member, Mr Louis A Coutts

There is something quite innocent about the Australian bush in spring. Nowhere will you find a cherry blossom or the blossom of other trees that decorate our streets and which explode in colour come spring. The Australian bush is much more modest but no less abundant in its own blossoms which go unnoticed by most people. The bush is what is left of this country and is clinging precariously to its fragile existence. Not a lot of people visit the bush and that is the reason for the innocence of the Australian bush blossoms. They emerge, season after season, almost unnoticed. Not far from where I live in the city, the council has secured a little segment of bush land which is under restoration and preservation. It is visited by few people which suits me because I visit it most days for a few moments of meditation and I am rarely interrupted. I sit on a bench opposite a pond which is surrounded by native plants that, for the first few days of spring, are decorated by the most glorious colours. The late wattles are brilliantly yellow but there are so many native plants that are unknown to me and they are clothed at the moment in a range of delicate colours from blinding white to demure purple. The ducks lazily disturb the waters of the pond or rest on an island taking their midday siesta. Birds fly from the trees and splash into the water and then fly upwards with their prey. The bush is showing itself, unaware of its simple beauty and unnoticed by the casual passer-by. It is a panorama of virginal innocence that repeats itself year after year with few taking advantage of its beauty. Little by little the flowers fall like tears upon the unkempt earth, creating a brief mantle of colour. The wind then comes and does its work and my little meditation pond, with its ducks and the occasional seagull, awaits the summer to survive for yet another season when its blossoms will once again go unseen.