Sacred Waters

Water was sacred either as a shower squirted out of a sprinkler on the backyard lawn to run through and cool us on hot summer days or splashed from a font when making the sign of the cross as we entered St Mary's for Sunday mass. It was more so when held within the banks of the Port Adelaide River, its tidal flow a pulse that pumped through the city's very heart. It was my Jordan and Ganges though in grandeur and size, its upper reaches was little more than a creek clogged with mangroves and mud. Its main channel was dredged and widened for ships. The river nurtured me, fed my appetite for myth and wonder and carried my history in its dark, oily flow. I both loved and loathed it for holding me to a mortgage. It took a lifetime to pay off. I still long to go back and stand on its banks, bathe my feet in its waters - make peace - return one more time to what was once my home. Though now, I doubt I will ever see the Port River again.