NOTE TO GO WITH THE FIRE ALARM INSTRUCTIONS

the new occupiers at our joint got this note

• respect the geckos
• watch the blackbirds but just grumble
• doves nest in the treefern
• rats cross the fence (not possums)
• at dusk our bats do not stop
• but almonds and apples and apricots and figs draw parrots on a single day
• keep mulch and water on the magnolias
• gall wasp want drowning twice a year
• mice foiling when weather drives them in
• when the days are baking three days still
• you may then vent night air
• (don’t cook indoors)
• (not just because the grill knob’s dodgy)
• bee keeper
• bird watcher
• arrak distiller
• pomegranate adorner
• Olafur Arnalds player
• all okay
• UFO survivor
• dog stoner
• rose stripper
• council dobber
• watch out let lips thin
• when the day reaches in
• shutter
• in the seasons of wattle and butterfly and eel
• respect the snakes early
• (if kookaburras are pairing you’re okay)
• on the edges and at water
• (bin chickens eat them too)
• walk for cranes
• gargle to magpies in their own voice
• no matter what nonsense
• (to shirtless cyclists this does not apply)
• keep the wild pear parrot poo off your car
• find the frogmouth if you can
• welcome the passage of wind back to front but not north-south
• listen for the rain but don’t count on it
• drier here and uphill on a treadly
• down on your way into town
• or the Westgarth or all fish and chips
• always down to the creek in eel flood
• when shampoo and shit run freely
• where in fennel autumn a platypus and even button quail
• let alone thrip and wild bees and cicadas throng
• be in on New Year and out Saturday mornings
• specify grams to the pasta dude
• scoops to the nuts
• and individual prawns
• while metres of boerewors
• thumbs of fetta
• and single slices of margherita will do
• afternoons of mud crab
• slow minutes of vegan banh mi
• late nights of mixed lot everything salad
• high noons of mowing
• and midnight choppers
• fireworks! Whenever
• buy yourself time here
• have the silly stuff delivered
• do not go out unless you must
• until the cats roast their brains on the heating
• and dogs in the noon of the sun
• feel it here
• do
• with all your hearts and your kids and grandkids
• godmothers and uncles and cream-faced teens
• regret schooling as much as they won’t remember yours
• die here if you can
• moving on is for wimps
• live in dark as well as your friends of the sucker under tin
• pale and a bit bitey if disturbed
• live here and nowhere else
• this deserves you and you this
• live here fortunately and lucky and kind
• long and eager and free
• wait till your children bust out
• live here some more
• some thing more
• be gentle to the moths and spiders
• even the Jack Russell next door loves you
• all day
• sometimes everyone and everything is just fine
• you cannot buy that for money
• but you can
• you did