A pastel sky, but the sea is eating Miilba’s tail again,
am watching two pairs of Oystercatchers, Pied and Sooty
when a screaming Lapwing takes me by surprise
mobbing a young Osprey, the camera wheels
me around intoxicated, too excitable.
The embroidered edge of the nature reserve is fraying,
more Horsetail Casuarinas are toppling one by one.
Helios finally loose is muzzled by cloud, Black Cockatoos
are playing in the rafters branching across the forest.
I am writing this back home, in recollection, surrounded
by squealing Lorikeets, but I can hear the low gear, then
squeal of brakes. The garbage truck is making its rounds.
I’m a few metres off the ground, it had not struck me before,
but it seems strange not to be at ground level, afloat
above the Japanese garden, the first Japanese Iris out,
regal blue, that undressing, a single event with effect even
if so miniscule impossible to measure – but a butterfly’s wings . . .
and the Black Cockatoos arrive and then leave.
