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The poet chose to give a geo location and date for this poem. That is an indicator that this series of poems are autobiographical, like a journal of her trip.
The Caves have been a tourist site since 792AD but really took off in 1962. They are show caves. They are enhanced with colourful lights, mirrors etc as seen above. Cave features are manipulated through these effects to create representations of animals, reptiles, vegetables and scenes such as Noonuccal refers to.
Essentially, the poem was inspired by her walk through the show caves. Some of the things she saw in stanzas 1 and 2 are the same as she knew from life and the Dreamtime stories. This causes her to refect that she is homesick and everything is reminding her of home. She states that she will return home but is glad to have travelled to China. She ends by wondering if her creator (the Rainbow Serpent) and, by extension her belief system, is just one of many deities/spirits.
In ending this way the poem changes from being a simple expression of her travels and homesickness and a reflection on the unity of nature in her home and it becomes an important comment on her openess to learning about other cultures and respecting their value.
Themes: unity, connection between cultures, love of land, belonging, the interconnectedness of nature and the importance of spiritual dimension.
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