First day of lockdown eased, Sept 11

1
After a month Yurruun.Ga wetland opens with
the cold panic of mist in a restless sunrise with
one swan, then a dark rock stirs, feathers unwrap
a famous neck extends and loops into the water.

2
We walk from the estuary back towards the wetland
beside Grey Mangroves, fish find a perfect form for school,
Mangrove Gerygones sing invisibly while stingrays calmly
go about their business, a Toadfish shadows one, looks
like it’s biting the tip of the tail then moves in front
waiting for morsels as the ray pumps sand. Suspended
in alternate trees are gems, Rainbow Bee-eaters
and Eastern Rosellas, their immediacy impossible to spell out.

2
Back home, our circular house is like a wagon train
expecting hostiles, four King Parrots sail round whistling
Tallowwood to Tallowwood to Grevillea, and a pair
of Eastern Rosellas stir up colour in the Dogwoods,
flowering huge domes of gold in the forest, but stubbornly
green in the garden, all five of them, and neither bird
letting me get a clear shot. The sky is that sublime blue
borrowed twenty years ago today, early morning online
the BBC homepage showing two towers in explosive colours,
the ash still to come, and the fall out that leaked world-wide.
The syndrome of righteous anger echoes through the ribs.

3
Bitter black, lovely night, moon on her back with a golden smile,
looking down into the garden for any glimmering, this year
the fireflies are early, but just reading smudged leaves and branches.
The balance between light and dark is hard for mortals to understand.