Summer
The summer screeches in with black cockatoos,black tails flaring a yellow streak
as pale as battery eggs.
They sit in a tree we can't name
cracking something between their dark beaks
or sail above the swimming poll
into the blue eye.
There's a posse of six each year.
I look out for them now
the way I check the horizon for smoke
or the forecast for temperatures over the big 40.
On days when I long for cathedral cool
I look up from filling the bird baths
they're hanging upside downor the forecast for temperatures over the big 40.
On days when I long for cathedral cool
I look up from filling the bird baths
above the scorched tree ferms
methodially feeding
and I stand a little longer
in the glare, an alien in my own backyard.
Catherine Bateson 2013
Warmed your hands on this? Hop over to the Tuesday Poem hub. There you can read 'Cracked' by Johanna Emeney, posted by this week's hub editor, Elizabeth Welsh. Read more of Johanna Emeney's work here.
1 comment:
Good one Catherine - I especially like the way the birds keep appearing throughout the poem.
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