A New Poem

Well, hello there! I’ve not been into my blog for a long while…reasons… but as I sat on my back veranda yesterday I penned this and thought I’d share it … I tried to fix the double line spacing but…

Away with the Birds

The spring sunshine closes my eyes

But instead of closing me off it opens me

And I spread, like the branches of the nearby

Stringybark, out into the aether. I become

Part of the world around me.

Not an observer but a participant.

 

I sit with the red-wing in the feeder

Having ousted those pacifist doves

Joined by his brothers and lovers

He keeps his troops in line while

Keeping a feathered eye out for harriers.

 

I hear the screech of an incoming

Tribe of lorikeets. They are bullies

Disguised in a refinery of rainbows

Which all the world finds so attractive

Which makes their bad behaviour acceptable

 

Despite the angry warning of his epaulettes

Red-wing decides discretion is better than valour,

Or maybe because his wife harangues him,

He flies to the camouflage of the bougainvillea

Hurling abuse over his shoulder, unheeded.

 

I remain unnoticed, or perhaps tolerated

As the garrulous lorries take their fill

Of my earlier worshipful offering to the

Bird-brains of my life.

They kick and flick seed as they feed

Not a word of thanks do they utter.

Why should they? They are beautiful.

 

In their wake the sedate and plainer

Less flashy, less sassy, bronzewings glide in

They have no problem sharing with their cousins,

Small grey doves and others, double-barred.

Tiny sunbirds chip chip and slip out of hiding

Fairyfolk flitting from blossom to blossom.

 

An observant kookaburra, lifts and shakes

His azure wings and guffaws at

My attempt to be away with the birds.

I curse him for the accuracy of his mimicry

And slink back to my prison from which

I shall one day be free.