At the foot of the stairs

September 2020

At the foot of the stairs, on the way to the shed, or taking something out to the car, I step into a scent that’s spicy, warm, transporting. A cloud of memory. The boronia is flowering. It’s the first flowering since I planted it here on the east side of the house near the back steps, where I figured it would get enough sun, but not too much, and I could keep it damp, because boronia comes from the wet forests of Noongah country, in the damp south of the south west of Western Australia.

Alice is delighted: that’s where she lived her first four years. When I moved to Perth in 1975, the men from the south still arrived in Hay Street Mall in Spring, their buckets full of dark brown boronia, selling to the city people. That heady scent was a sign that the cold time was passing and the hot time was coming.

Alice went looking for the Noongah word for boronia. She didn’t find a direct translation but she did learn that for people of the south, boronia was a marker for the arrival of the season known as camberang. The other markers are baby swans, and dugites and tiger snakes out in the sunshine but still dozy from winter, so take it easy, hey? 

Here in Riddell, what are our markers for Springtime?

It’s the time of rain and sunshine.

The time of wearing only two layers sometimes
The time of the appearance of bare arms.
The time of the dawn chorus of symphonic proportions.
The time of the grunting koala.

The time when you look to the hills, and wonder what summer will bring this year.

But I wasn’t going to be gloomy. The scent of the boronia is a wonder, and to have it at the back door, a joy. Bring on those sunny days!

Ross Colliver, Riddells Creek Landcare