September 2018
NOTE: I love birds. These three poems celebrate their diverse wonder.
Wedge Tail Eagle
The Eagle
In high, wild wind
I watch her ride corridors of air.
The wind is in her pinions,
in the effortless deftness
and minute calibrations
of her circling glide.
My blurred, distant world
is her sharp focus.
An easy surge corrects her path
and she veers rapidly away
on another current of air.
My voice is a thin whisper
on the high mountainside.
“Queen of air,
hollow-boned,
with dagger talons,
scimitar beak,
gowned in barred brown
and robed in wings more glorious
than garment of embroidered gold,
how you glide, dive and spiral
in majesty and mastery.
Fly close, fix on me
your clear and amber eye,
share with me,
you, who are so high and noble,
so fierce and wild,
so unshackled and free.”
Willy Wagtail
Light, agile, acrobatic,
she dances on the fence post,
her gown of black and white
as sleek and smooth
as unruffled satin,
though she owns no other
and wears it day and night.
She fans her little tail.
Her flight is flits and spins,
short jaunts and instant turns,
out, up, down, around,
then back to dance again
on post or strand
of rusting, sagging wire.
Listen to her song.
Chick-a-chick-a-chick.
That is not complaint.
It is celebration.
Listen again.
Now she trills more musically,
her chattering voice
prettily rising and falling
as she pours out into the air only
pure, sweet, bright joy.
Home
The butcher bird pours
liquid ripple of song
into the blue sky.
The rosella dips
his crimson head
and drinks in alert delight.
We sit on the verandah.
Your eyes smile.
I reach for your hand.
Eastern Rosella
© 2018 Neil Creighton
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