five bird poems (Benalla)

highway (crows)

crows shone
on the shoulder
of the highway

striding
business like
from carrion to carrion

ruffs alert to the tender kiss
of a passing breeze

black feet
black beak
black feathers

the black crows
shone
on the shoulder
of the highway

~

evaluation of a swimmer

the line of the wake
is a duck
is a dabchick

a moorhen

the bobbing of her head
is the forcing rhythm
of hard work
under water

a flotilla of ducks
sedate
by the shore
consider
their evaluation

but a quack
is such a nasal thing
that
whatever their conclusion
I’ll never know

~

slow water

lazy river
upside down
your silt rides
on the surface

making
a turbulent mirror
for the sun
to reflect an arc
of cockatoos
in slow flight

sky
among the branches
of a restless corrugating
raised
by soft breeze
soughing low
low along
the rippling water line

but hardly touching
red gum leaves
that dangle close
and lazy

slow river
slow waves
slow
slow water

~

Cockatoo Tree

cockatoo tree
white
against the olive

the afternoon
this afternoon
is for sleeping

until you wake up
a hundred
one hundred wings
flapping

cockatoo the sky
full of squawking

cockatoo
your white
up against
the stainless blue

~

More hens please

moor hens
on the foreshore

dabchicks
on the grass

red faced
red chased
by other moor hens

dabbling the river

and still
it rolls

---

© Frank Prem, 2017

June 2017 Poem #38: breathing air and truth