Night Song of the Willie Wagtail


A flute, sweet as honeysuckle,
twists sound spoons up in curlicues
and turns off the walls of darkness.

A rich-bell off a good high mettle,
sure as bold bronze in its casting,

is struck with sure notes, to carillon
in colours - as music catches alight.

They call it ‘Australian Nightingale.’

But this will-o-wisp in the night
is daysprung, a branching bud off
living wiry tendrils, dancing over
the graves reluctant weight.

A song is writ in the shadows
with bent sunbeams it has
roped and trapped, a quick of light,
spirited away and worked to

a physics’ reed, on instruments of
throat, in an ‘out-of-school’ coverless
emotional chemistry, so, late-lit
on the blackboard of night,

a music of gyroscopic sleight of throat
implodes in audible sparkles and flash
-flames of sound,

it fills the air like the most
sleepless prayer, as it signs in a flourish
of audio-calligraphy on my heart.


28 Nov 2003 © Wayne David Knoll
Footscray Park, Marybyrnong River, Melbourne