WHAT'S HAPPENING?

WHAT'S HAPPENING?

Bare twigs touch the cold underside
of the moving sky, fearless of its weather.

A wind gust huffs like panicked moral outrage
in the wintry ash tree, and falls breathless.

For all of three minutes not a visible bird
lands in your own window's quadrant of sight.

Yet a raw noise - crass sound - reaches ears
without earplugs: unseen crows read the news.

They report the atrocities of a gang of blue wrens
wreaking havoc among a swarm of undeclared midges.

The crows claim that when singing blackbirds cease
performance they kill earthworms in carnivorous silence.

Now a honeyeater sits on one of those bare twigs,
having ravaged all the honey from today's flowers

And sings.

- W.D.K. 12 August 2014