The Fish’s Dream

Reflections on Art Tree

By Meg Taranto, Generator artist

All across the floor
I have drawn,
all the ways I used to look
from all the eyes I used to see with,
and all the things I saw.
I remember, it’s in my nature.

Reaching for a pen
with a hand
that hasn’t always been a hand,
you see, it used to be a fin,
way back when.
I remember, it’s in my nature.

Holding a twist of bark,
in my hand
that also… used to be a giant
when all my friends and me
were forest.
wait – how do I tie this? No, I remember, it’s in my nature.

The tape won’t rip
-you can do it; I’ll teach you a trick
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
I remember.
Only new for now-
-where did you think I learnt to roar like this?
I can make a dolphin sound.
I can roll around.
At school I’m in year one
But I remember, it’s in my nature.

I like the seed pods
The ones that make a sound
imagine when I grew hundreds
and the way I used to sing
when all my talk was dirt and leaves and bark.
-can you cut this?
Thanks – I remember, it’s in my nature.

Let me tell you something,
it’s about the sun.
They’re my oldest friend.
Every time I rearranged
they found me having fun!
even at the bottom of the deep deep deepest ocean
(yes – I’ve been there too)
I remember, it’s in my nature.

I am the proudest dream
of that fish
the one I was talking about before
imagine if they knew
my hand, the way I move on land
imagine if they could meet me
visit my school – I’m in year one.
But they might already know, it was in their nature.

My nature’s all the stuff
the stuff that makes me up
it’s been on many journeys
but now it’s me.
Every tiny little cell
and it carries just enough,
for me to be and to remember
My nature.

Left: Corroboree frogs in a stream. Right: Evidence of a baby, learning to walk.

Across the two hours of each Art Tree session, I watched young people move through the full gamut of what is possible in poetic space. From not knowing to wondering, fledgling to flight, drawing to making. Moving from what they thought was expected of them to what they have never done but can intuit.

Body memory. Born from a kind of silence, the magic of being in flow state beside a young person.

When they reach for nature, it feels like an act of memory.

It makes me think of the expression ‘in one’s nature.’

And how all of us, including the youngest among us, are made of old, old matter.

I’m thinking this as I’m drawing dinosaur bones on the lip of a pond, connected to a wider water network being drawn in the present by a very generous young person. We’re talking about everything that came before us and soon, everything that will come after us. We talk about it like it’s a big game, a beautiful and fun game, that we’ve always been a part of. The ponds they draw are quickly teaming with fish and frogs and clams dreamt up by other young friends. Creatures that come here to meet, travelling sideways through time.

MT