Listen to Liz read her letter here:
Dear Riverland,
With coffee cup I linger on the deck. Morning air so crisp my nostrils burn.
Low, golden light embraces me like a warm hug. The fresh brew pumps caffeine through my being.
And stirs me from my slumber.
I take in all around me as though I was just born. So familiar, yet all is new.
This is where I belong. I love it here.
I am a part of this place.
Ancient people thrived here for tens of millennia. At one with their landscape. Complete understanding.
Knowing that without a healthy, flowing river no one and nothing could prosper.
If the river ceased, so too would other life.
I’m besieged by the current contradiction. Profound beauty, yet such strife.
Mirrored River Red Gums, upside down and right way up. Salt & gluttony choke what once freely flowed.
Greed versus need. Economy apposes Environment.
Inspiration abounds and I hunger to create. Something beautiful. To challenge. To bring meaning.
To inspire a new way, a simpler way, a better way.
To teach. To protect. To heal.
Without RIVER, ‘River-land’ is reduced to LAND. A desert. Will we become refugees of our own making?
The river is a living entity yet paper water is traded like shares. It’s wrong. Water is precious and finite.
Wealth creation may very well be our demise.
As darkness chases day I am again on the deck, wine glass in hand. Splendour abounds.
Beneath a crimson, fair-floss sky the River Red Gums sprout snow blooms as the corellas settle. And all is still.
With tomorrow, comes new hope that life here can remain, and I may continue to be a part of this incredible place.
With love,
Liz Frankel
Part of Things 