Armed With the Weapons of The Whipbird

~ Whip Bird by Jacob Butler


ARMED WITH THE WEAPONS OF THE WHIPBIRD


~ by Wayne David Knoll

To be like that black-crested pied-green camouflaged creature
Of the hidden esteem; more usually heard than seen, hardly ever
Seen, Djou: Eastern Whipbird; denizen of Australia's temperate
Rainforests, Djou haunts the wet gullies near streams in spate
Or on the slopes in inclement times, come rain, come fog
And to keep on the air - above all the dampness, that bog
To feed on mosquitos and gnats rising from all that's moist
To be at the arms of command in leather strands of big voice.

A being intensified by not being seen, having presence
A personality accentuated by other's sense of its absence
It's appearance lurks in the background of our kind
While its call holds like a song caught unique in the mind
Like an asymmetrical soldier, guerrilla fighters out of reach
Of everyday lenses, for our common ear-hackles fail to teach
Us the nuances and subtleties with which the creator makes
And few go out mindful enough to what seeing (or hearing) takes.

Without divisions in strength or firepower other
Than that held secret - beyond thin beak and claw
For Djou - the Eastern Whipbird -has quite another
String to its born armour
That Coachwhip, that long-plaited leathery-string of sound
Which it so gradually unwinds - in unassuming yet profound
Slow motion -so to build towards an inevitable hugely audible frack
That rends the whole air - sounds to end in a deadly Whipcrack.

Eastern Whipbird -photograph by Brian McCauley