tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17159996313425124222024-03-13T09:35:02.462-07:00Armed With The Weapons Of The WhipbirdWayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-84885690311693177982017-10-29T16:48:00.004-07:002017-10-29T16:51:23.981-07:00OO<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7rL8hjY-eV9rX_iLwe-wdNPAn0bGj6nRo5sPqjSCjnL1m0wezm3J2qeFXqBPz3tlq9yT-hUTwutacCxQurqW95ynzSMLFnAA-s88_WFS8Qn6XpR2Y9WIkBODj5DTwZNcXvIrCCGIuWgeC/s1600/Bronzewing-pigeon-feather.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7rL8hjY-eV9rX_iLwe-wdNPAn0bGj6nRo5sPqjSCjnL1m0wezm3J2qeFXqBPz3tlq9yT-hUTwutacCxQurqW95ynzSMLFnAA-s88_WFS8Qn6XpR2Y9WIkBODj5DTwZNcXvIrCCGIuWgeC/s640/Bronzewing-pigeon-feather.jpg" width="640" height="426" data-original-width="1024" data-original-height="682" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<b> - OO - </b><br />
<br />
After the chattering of the earlier birds<br />
of dawn<br />
the morning after came with a <b>mm</b> or <b>oo</b><br />
of a pigeon<br />
that deep-throated <b>oom</b> of a bronzewing;<br />
more question<br />
than answer, sounding the <b>sub-sonic</b> calls<br />
of yearning<br />
but of the bird, nothing to be seen but a flash<br />
of gold in a feather. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-13521190881240797882017-10-29T16:46:00.000-07:002017-10-29T16:46:39.552-07:00Relaying Flight<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9BeHdBQqia8PAUNG5SnEUp_T4EtQLrFuAyVPaCijLvFtsW2__q4QtXG1UxLvY7AOgG0vqulyrNcldut_ZZmKaPloG6IAm4sjAGnfwdvvAtgJYheEW2qKHcb7FuzRSrGlOcNeulbu2aDer/s1600/wet+red+wattle+bird+mon+30+septlow+reso.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9BeHdBQqia8PAUNG5SnEUp_T4EtQLrFuAyVPaCijLvFtsW2__q4QtXG1UxLvY7AOgG0vqulyrNcldut_ZZmKaPloG6IAm4sjAGnfwdvvAtgJYheEW2qKHcb7FuzRSrGlOcNeulbu2aDer/s640/wet+red+wattle+bird+mon+30+septlow+reso.jpg" width="640" height="447" data-original-width="1197" data-original-height="836" /></a></div><br />
<br />
RELAYING FLIGHT<br />
<br />
The flighty way the intrepid bird moves <br />
as it flits ahead of my flat-driving bicycle <br />
over the plains, the salt-laken causeway,<br />
in its landings, perched a paused moment<br />
on some chosen fencepost before going on <br />
again across the wet-n-treeless grassland,<br />
<br />
stopping, <br />
only to go a further way, <br />
and again;<br />
<br />
puts me in mind of that free more formal poem<br />
where flight is versed up to be sung line by line <br />
in stretched phrases drawn of a wildly anxious <br />
equanimity comes at last to its wide wingends <br />
in that upward flourish when the hunterbird <br />
rises to its flight rescue in a sheltering tree.<br />
Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-41364303612129517552017-10-29T16:33:00.003-07:002017-10-29T16:33:31.978-07:00Another Species Back from Paper Extinction <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTQ8RFXuavCaxpS4RDtv9-ohxcNgafgMM_7quGLcnnovRUzDBEp1S8n_at0NcxKl66Eo3P99YpNL4rRqvi4Z89cNABLDq8ArsElmPNwo7bu5ptvVTDYDIhuSYs_aWBRDD5LZ_SGT6fGtG7/s1600/FEATHER+NIGHT+PARROT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTQ8RFXuavCaxpS4RDtv9-ohxcNgafgMM_7quGLcnnovRUzDBEp1S8n_at0NcxKl66Eo3P99YpNL4rRqvi4Z89cNABLDq8ArsElmPNwo7bu5ptvVTDYDIhuSYs_aWBRDD5LZ_SGT6fGtG7/s640/FEATHER+NIGHT+PARROT.jpg" width="640" height="427" data-original-width="340" data-original-height="227" /></a></div><br />
<b>ANOTHER SPECIES BACK FROM PAPER EXTINCTION</b><br />
<br />
<br />
A Night Parrot <br />
has been captured in a blurry <br />
Photographic image <br />
In the Great Sandy Desert<br />
One plump <br />
mottle-green bird with yellow belly<br />
Flits between <br />
invisibility and chance observation. <br />
Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-41273383065573144772017-10-29T16:22:00.000-07:002017-10-29T16:25:14.419-07:00Airmanship <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4I_qXilx01-B_PhmoTrEf7bqCHPEFihzHQxsf92FrTq9A3cEC_f8V8De9f4YoVv8KLg10NiVXmNBlQd6ZHlCk_hOEKgpAcYuddcAuMwGHjXUaUn1QwDN85uMKjYx2zE5tBH-rEZM5J__w/s1600/Airmanship+-barn-swallow-the-doors.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4I_qXilx01-B_PhmoTrEf7bqCHPEFihzHQxsf92FrTq9A3cEC_f8V8De9f4YoVv8KLg10NiVXmNBlQd6ZHlCk_hOEKgpAcYuddcAuMwGHjXUaUn1QwDN85uMKjYx2zE5tBH-rEZM5J__w/s640/Airmanship+-barn-swallow-the-doors.jpg" width="640" height="499" data-original-width="640" data-original-height="499" /></a></div><i>-Swallow flight through a narrow defile -Image by Keith Ringland:"She didn't have to swerve, or even apply the brakes. With just a flap and a twist a swallow swooped through a two-inch gap in a locked barn door."</i><br />
<br />
<b>AIRMANSHIP</b><br />
<br />
You and I would gulp and swerve,<br />
but these fliers dash in on a curve,<br />
angling in on a fast flourish of wing<br />
as their fly proves it has no lure string<br />
and speed enter a tank's gaping bung <br />
they spin into dark; pull up not wrong!<br />
The sky swallows that never till here rest,<br />
coming in to their darkened cavern nest.<br />
Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-951858256879479182017-10-29T16:16:00.000-07:002017-10-29T16:16:09.965-07:00Winged Pause<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4VK-UoTVA9V77g_HyTP0zG2mcAHoc2JcMSUTBZ8OzO4HS74wSZdgpdeDjFYEQP1vZlwqGojyewrOtTjSFXjtGVMJI2D3U3Dp_yWj-TRJ7TMvSk98iOto9gNvzd8lvmShmAk4wuVCxlLX1/s1600/Home+Swallows+150.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4VK-UoTVA9V77g_HyTP0zG2mcAHoc2JcMSUTBZ8OzO4HS74wSZdgpdeDjFYEQP1vZlwqGojyewrOtTjSFXjtGVMJI2D3U3Dp_yWj-TRJ7TMvSk98iOto9gNvzd8lvmShmAk4wuVCxlLX1/s640/Home+Swallows+150.JPG" width="640" height="480" data-original-width="1200" data-original-height="900" /></a></div><br />
WINGED PAUSE<br />
<br />
<br />
When chestnut-capped<br />
And breasted Welcome Swallows come<br />
To a standstill, <br />
They never do so for nothing, or for long;<br />
Always in purpose<br />
Like they do to roost upon a sagging wire<br />
Or, in its season, to<br />
Come to some shape in solidity to build a nest<br />
Which is why a pair<br />
Are landing now atop the old holed rusty bungtop<br />
Of the corrugated iron <br />
Tank just outside my window, and see, one descends<br />
Still further beneath <br />
The sky, into its gloom, between its ripple-bent walls<br />
And are not disoriented,<br />
Above the drip-circling mirrors of its black and watery floor<br />
To mud up a wall cup<br />
Nest and raise more of that winged kind who <br />
Do not sit at tables or at rest <br />
To eat, but fly from winged pause to feast above us<br />
In the restaurants of the sky.<br />
Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-53536996149592323072017-08-23T06:00:00.002-07:002017-08-23T06:02:12.152-07:00Like Letter Boxes In A Lake<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Eb5kcX1pz_29SqaRbzmWMKEcv1VdlIfLSgHlsxpUqbhdH30ALB_97gCEg6Hwq9DFz4_ehpeCZlJw6xt8rc0n08Us_OVi41TkfWVGWGfC29WiVsJJUlYYr0ms-3LPwdKPwAugRZFLoxA5/s1600/egrets.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Eb5kcX1pz_29SqaRbzmWMKEcv1VdlIfLSgHlsxpUqbhdH30ALB_97gCEg6Hwq9DFz4_ehpeCZlJw6xt8rc0n08Us_OVi41TkfWVGWGfC29WiVsJJUlYYr0ms-3LPwdKPwAugRZFLoxA5/s640/egrets.jpg" width="640" height="480" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" /></a></div><br />
<br />
LIKE LETTER BOXES IN A LAKE<br />
<br />
<br />
Fancy, a town lake with wet streets of reeds <br />
All pillar-boxed by rows of roosting Nile Egrets<br />
<br />
Each reedy clump has its white sentinel pegged<br />
To stand there whitely like mailboxes up one leg<br />
<br />
Outside each unlettered rafia house, they don't bunch<br />
Up but shrug up for night, tuck heads in, and hunch<br />
<br />
Shoulders to wait out for morning, delivering edge<br />
To the willow-wand frontages of houses of sedge<br />
<br />
Listed not on a realtor's blurb, nor gavelled auctioneering<br />
Not to be bought, the airmail delivered on an egret wing.<br />
<br />
<br />
Wayne David Knoll<br />
July 28, 2016<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUbF6BvkNwS-g_XkSy-tD9XbziKVHFTr4iAupnVWypO4Nsg3mDMK9NEubnSGHSWVAKfWKRivweB1IxS1ERQAZhRyKyxqjePQ400br4TqSNm5bleHwy926WxoWGRHEhC-pqLKsRbdyormWL/s1600/Egrets+and+Ibis+Roost%252C+TeaTree+Lake%252C+Mortlake+Early+2016.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUbF6BvkNwS-g_XkSy-tD9XbziKVHFTr4iAupnVWypO4Nsg3mDMK9NEubnSGHSWVAKfWKRivweB1IxS1ERQAZhRyKyxqjePQ400br4TqSNm5bleHwy926WxoWGRHEhC-pqLKsRbdyormWL/s640/Egrets+and+Ibis+Roost%252C+TeaTree+Lake%252C+Mortlake+Early+2016.JPG" width="640" height="259" data-original-width="1338" data-original-height="541" /></a></div>Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-29943004969712477512017-08-22T07:48:00.004-07:002017-08-22T07:48:34.293-07:00Rare Fruit : Australian Eastern Yellow Robin<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizP1pwQndjj2d0lxY3ZL2qYfcd3g16RkFWqxvCg3bZeZlD_3YzJVzcmNGxHsn90m668FpLWsWC7lec4u6jAAk-6CEQDnz8gupSNZD9fHrzmZf2Wh02XChCBeK9KAt8DEQq-JGr-B-Zffj5/s1600/robin+east+yellow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizP1pwQndjj2d0lxY3ZL2qYfcd3g16RkFWqxvCg3bZeZlD_3YzJVzcmNGxHsn90m668FpLWsWC7lec4u6jAAk-6CEQDnz8gupSNZD9fHrzmZf2Wh02XChCBeK9KAt8DEQq-JGr-B-Zffj5/s640/robin+east+yellow.jpg" width="640" height="427" data-original-width="550" data-original-height="367" /></a></div><br />
RARE FRUIT<br />
<br />
Like an unheard idea of a rare fruit <br />
with wings<br />
they droop from bush branch and <br />
tree trunk;<br />
yellow robins that ripen of the grey <br />
dull winter<br />
with a sweet-slumbering sun close <br />
as family<br />
in the sheer cheer of a bright-eyed <br />
mind harvest;<br />
they flit here as if they complete <br />
the cryptic <br />
mystery with darts of feed-found <br />
wild intelligence.<br />
<br />
Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-49716915511090609352017-08-22T07:35:00.004-07:002017-08-22T07:56:55.409-07:00Of Otherwise, Selah<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1alLQjLS3qjjyJYdcMoDP7CFuyK0gH7X7KhEoQvguFYtq3cCnxnuaKDN0-qoJgmhOOo3k7parzdAFXK1xU064zKAU9lS-VsoYO_c9FLBaeR8L9uM21LBA0n-PXi1socT-Hy1Ib0yLAKLO/s1600/magpie+branch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1alLQjLS3qjjyJYdcMoDP7CFuyK0gH7X7KhEoQvguFYtq3cCnxnuaKDN0-qoJgmhOOo3k7parzdAFXK1xU064zKAU9lS-VsoYO_c9FLBaeR8L9uM21LBA0n-PXi1socT-Hy1Ib0yLAKLO/s640/magpie+branch.jpg" width="640" height="479" data-original-width="259" data-original-height="194" /></a></div><br />
<br />
OF OTHERWISE, SELAH<br />
<br />
~ by Wayne David Knoll <br />
<br />
The cynical intellectual lauds his nothing as<br />
the agnostic wears his black T-shirt with the <br />
blazon 'Religion: together we can find a cure'<br />
<br />
in the same world where the age's traffic flees off<br />
on no pilgrimage but haste, a progress anxiety to be<br />
not here, else, where, in a tree near the front porch<br />
<br />
an Australian magpie here warbles it's lyrical refrain: <br />
the mellifluous sweetness of otherwise, Selah.<br />
<br />
April 1, 2015 Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-51443564401307238202017-08-20T22:57:00.004-07:002017-08-21T04:47:04.985-07:00Armed With the Weapons of The Whipbird<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzjDqhDRv0g6x5wFRaEjsXgvCklyipiAZ4PLzmwaRniNkJB_gUfT5AxgAinPbnE6JccIzfPjV9TNzxXIMFL8rpe2eZnVblwipS4_Kq9cyTkk4uTUnFA8QJ0ESsB3VG0Xx6HrKxTBPngK1c/s1600/whip-bird-jacob-butler-bluethumb-art.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzjDqhDRv0g6x5wFRaEjsXgvCklyipiAZ4PLzmwaRniNkJB_gUfT5AxgAinPbnE6JccIzfPjV9TNzxXIMFL8rpe2eZnVblwipS4_Kq9cyTkk4uTUnFA8QJ0ESsB3VG0Xx6HrKxTBPngK1c/s640/whip-bird-jacob-butler-bluethumb-art.jpg" width="640" height="425" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1062" /></a></div><i>~ Whip Bird by Jacob Butler</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<b>ARMED WITH THE WEAPONS OF THE WHIPBIRD</b><br />
<br />
<br />
~ by Wayne David Knoll <br />
<br />
To be like that black-crested pied-green camouflaged creature<br />
Of the hidden esteem; more usually heard than seen, hardly ever<br />
Seen, Djou: Eastern Whipbird; denizen of Australia's temperate <br />
Rainforests, Djou haunts the wet gullies near streams in spate<br />
Or on the slopes in inclement times, come rain, come fog<br />
And to keep on the air - above all the dampness, that bog<br />
To feed on mosquitos and gnats rising from all that's moist<br />
To be at the arms of command in leather strands of big voice.<br />
<br />
A being intensified by not being seen, having presence<br />
A personality accentuated by other's sense of its absence<br />
It's appearance lurks in the background of our kind<br />
While its call holds like a song caught unique in the mind<br />
Like an asymmetrical soldier, guerrilla fighters out of reach<br />
Of everyday lenses, for our common ear-hackles fail to teach<br />
Us the nuances and subtleties with which the creator makes<br />
And few go out mindful enough to what seeing (or hearing) takes.<br />
<br />
Without divisions in strength or firepower other<br />
Than that held secret - beyond thin beak and claw<br />
For Djou - the Eastern Whipbird -has quite another<br />
String to its born armour<br />
That Coachwhip, that long-plaited leathery-string of sound<br />
Which it so gradually unwinds - in unassuming yet profound<br />
Slow motion -so to build towards an inevitable hugely audible frack<br />
That rends the whole air - sounds to end in a deadly Whipcrack.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6MtKOnnmvipdjcacOU0sj6TRKgnoIJFkNNJPozgR6Fons-RzLEoGpqv4kxvvpSG3x7QzkLvOOoBdwkHijmp2pStJqPSPDC0wb3DWQ2AVuykb2UxvfFQovXRKfdLKy2Rs6GbH3P3wD-sEi/s1600/eastern_whipbird_brian_mccauley_fcc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6MtKOnnmvipdjcacOU0sj6TRKgnoIJFkNNJPozgR6Fons-RzLEoGpqv4kxvvpSG3x7QzkLvOOoBdwkHijmp2pStJqPSPDC0wb3DWQ2AVuykb2UxvfFQovXRKfdLKy2Rs6GbH3P3wD-sEi/s640/eastern_whipbird_brian_mccauley_fcc.jpg" width="640" height="480" data-original-width="1024" data-original-height="768" /></a></div><i>Eastern Whipbird -photograph by Brian McCauley</i><br />
<br />
Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-49018324773805053022017-08-20T20:35:00.003-07:002017-08-20T20:39:01.260-07:00Lady In Pink<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoasHJRIBps2JoqPro09a8o6-FDCHFHYrY5enhHEtJBdbdokl8IEB-pZXG4zb-IJAMPyFhaotmcAxmZFYRZMgQ3waN_ugv2_hWtv7LOU9i3lwTLspy96JX1KNfe3T8JBLBM8I8VmHqGOlF/s1600/galah.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoasHJRIBps2JoqPro09a8o6-FDCHFHYrY5enhHEtJBdbdokl8IEB-pZXG4zb-IJAMPyFhaotmcAxmZFYRZMgQ3waN_ugv2_hWtv7LOU9i3lwTLspy96JX1KNfe3T8JBLBM8I8VmHqGOlF/s400/galah.JPG" width="364" height="400" data-original-width="522" data-original-height="573" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
LADY IN PINK<br />
<br />
Sometimes she does go out<br />
With the plain-looking Corellas<br />
But she's at her colourful best about<br />
With her own, such mad Galahs<br />
<br />
As cry to double and colour up an evening<br />
Gathering all of the last light<br />
To herself - just being fascinating<br />
By looking utterly composed in absolute fright.Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-55220797151291734932017-08-20T20:05:00.000-07:002017-08-20T20:05:49.691-07:00It's Corellas<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSokzIlJVdryoQxwRi8kAnId4PZqoGrPDjGZXc3kZJtq50NW0-yvuGfTtVqm9EawgPNsGCo22_S16A8n953fiYQ878Jg-RgMWXRly6irvJo4UJjtxJnkxGwXlfqCIEVmXso8Ou3F-pHxVP/s1600/corellas+on+grass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSokzIlJVdryoQxwRi8kAnId4PZqoGrPDjGZXc3kZJtq50NW0-yvuGfTtVqm9EawgPNsGCo22_S16A8n953fiYQ878Jg-RgMWXRly6irvJo4UJjtxJnkxGwXlfqCIEVmXso8Ou3F-pHxVP/s640/corellas+on+grass.jpg" width="640" height="328" data-original-width="1000" data-original-height="512" /></a></div><br />
IT’S CORELLA - or, Forget the Paper Cockatoo<br />
<br />
- by Wayne David Knoll<br />
<br />
Forget the cut-down moniker Cockie <br />
And leave off the nickname of Cockatoo <br />
It is your sulphur crested’s unsung cousins <br />
The Corellas that are the farmers, those daily <br />
Ground-haunting weather-eyed watchers of the sky.<br />
<br />
Call them Bill, Little, Long or Short Bill, if you look<br />
you’ll find the unassuming blue-eyed birds grasping <br />
at grass, their claws protruding from the trouser leggings <br />
of their dirty white overalls, nightly cleaned, <br />
then soiled by day in faithfully picking out their field.<br />
<br />
They go at digging without makeup in the pick<br />
of the full facial of dogged intention, their cheeks <br />
flushed with the intense rose thread blooming up<br />
of the country air, ignoring distraction, with a shrug <br />
of no-nonsense get-down attitude, willing any can-do<br />
<br />
to seek opportunity, find a crop, make a harvest <br />
of what the blood and bone graveyard of this earth <br />
might yield up, as if a commonsense of root and stem<br />
and its short provender of bulbs and seed-heads <br />
were for all the world the last and final intelligence<br />
<br />
of a whole economy, and the open secret they protect<br />
behind the pale blue shades, spectacles worn as they work <br />
out the gold threads from the ground, while roots of pink <br />
age-creases grow out of the blue below their eyes as if <br />
twirling threads loosed from these artisan’s lost tapestry<br />
<br />
woven out of the wild’s open liquidation. What Corellas<br />
mean is as difficult for us as what they are: a day's ordinary is <br />
extra-ordinary, the mean-seeming: special; a common or garden <br />
culture of this vast uncelebrated reality is worth attending<br />
for its five-star thrift of providence in the grass, blade, root.<br />
<br />
This world is as no theory is; but is as it is; in the tough-shy<br />
nitty gritty of the Corella bird's day of empirical grassland<br />
and never much as you or I might find it in even the best <br />
of textbooks, let alone as any file, any film or documentary<br />
entry in our archives and marked for long life ‘Cockatoo.’<br />
<br />
Offside the virtual human world are many Corellas. <br />
<br />
- Mooroolbark, Victoria Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-11634882299622484222017-08-20T19:58:00.001-07:002017-08-20T19:58:33.788-07:00Corella Sky<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ASrUwuvZe-wxNCRch4Hfod1ykk5qieZK0b0tPcM_iB6ZR8oeRCsKM-lc6izYbpo1mwBxIkBjS0aSTU15eOIszZA_IZbbjBQZOO0HEmQEXThi4yiuMFFq4AoLno7vFfWnFVV3Rvlbk1eu/s1600/corella+sky.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ASrUwuvZe-wxNCRch4Hfod1ykk5qieZK0b0tPcM_iB6ZR8oeRCsKM-lc6izYbpo1mwBxIkBjS0aSTU15eOIszZA_IZbbjBQZOO0HEmQEXThi4yiuMFFq4AoLno7vFfWnFVV3Rvlbk1eu/s640/corella+sky.jpg" width="640" height="412" data-original-width="1000" data-original-height="643" /></a></div><br />
<br />
CORELLA SKY<br />
<br />
Summer's morning sky<br />
Is all corella cry<br />
<br />
Where the wrench-faced blanche of cockatoos<br />
Screech not just by ones and twos<br />
<br />
But in concert of sun-struck thousands where all the audience play<br />
Each manic bird the Prima Donna of the day<br />
<br />
So their screamed songs lash the air with siren calls<br />
To whip fellow creature ears in stiff-feathered caterwauls<br />
<br />
As if to prove their number in the wild sanctimony<br />
Found in each other's raucous cacophony.<br />
<br />
<br />
10 December 2016 <br />
<br />
Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-33386311614033246562017-08-20T19:52:00.003-07:002017-08-20T20:23:33.986-07:00Collective Noun Flight<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipx7NHmK3_yCu3Q3JPHcdWjJLO8cqV567-uT1ObgpeMk1imW0kc3VRV2fBcLJYNAzdZynh0waeL1QPUuBQAEC93fZ2-gwtGF6ZgYvNowqIFPTexVpJ4eRjdHDB6gl6OOPRZElQwL8sAb9-/s1600/starling+murmuration.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipx7NHmK3_yCu3Q3JPHcdWjJLO8cqV567-uT1ObgpeMk1imW0kc3VRV2fBcLJYNAzdZynh0waeL1QPUuBQAEC93fZ2-gwtGF6ZgYvNowqIFPTexVpJ4eRjdHDB6gl6OOPRZElQwL8sAb9-/s640/starling+murmuration.jpg" width="640" height="360" data-original-width="1280" data-original-height="720" /></a></div>-<i> A murmuration of starlings</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He9cJwalhXc"><b><b>Sound Video- Corellas Fly to Roost</b></b></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
COLLECTIVE NOUNS IN FLIGHT<br />
<br />
If you've watched <br />
evolved Attenborough's latest 'Flight'<br />
you'll know that <br />
this nature documentary in 3D by<br />
third degree features <br />
mobbing-massive flocks of Starlings arriving <br />
in Rome to roost <br />
in park trees, which, to avoid peregrine<br />
falcons fly a dance <br />
in formation, a blitz-n-blizzard of birds<br />
that he calls <br />
by the established name, a murmeration.<br />
<br />
So now I wonder,<br />
for every night I've heard before sight<br />
a massed flock <br />
coming in to roost, but of Australian birds,<br />
to the parkland trees <br />
inside the watered town, I'm hearing <br />
no murmurs <br />
for this cloud's a mass screech of Corellas seen<br />
or unseen <br />
a sound-cloud which to be believed must be heard<br />
and might <br />
collectively be named a cacophonation. <br />
<br />
<br />
25 February 2015 <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivcAUlI0haKOih0-y19v_-D3YZ34CP4XekPgD3zX_-Nap00m-DfZPfOEGcdxEDAWXPmI4z4DqYVWzclo6LNIKgyy6_lwC4GTPPtpdJl0xsvgHIYVc3sZLf5NNgKqDY9kfBL3y_DK-NdVnV/s1600/corella+flight+enmasse.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivcAUlI0haKOih0-y19v_-D3YZ34CP4XekPgD3zX_-Nap00m-DfZPfOEGcdxEDAWXPmI4z4DqYVWzclo6LNIKgyy6_lwC4GTPPtpdJl0xsvgHIYVc3sZLf5NNgKqDY9kfBL3y_DK-NdVnV/s640/corella+flight+enmasse.JPG" width="640" height="417" data-original-width="451" data-original-height="294" /></a></div><i>- A cacophonation of corellas.</i><br />
Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-13130449412644726132017-08-20T19:32:00.002-07:002017-08-20T19:42:22.582-07:00Post-Winter Bird Clamour<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNpBu-xRft12SJvx9HIO4ggQuoPRxBbJE6j3POrkvukqiOTk3jOJFdiuzN-O_pxxRyrXGhm7egB79weEBC114VNMk7wuyDlBpTOo-r9iBx6OrPQpUoQ7xuLmUXeR20vMz86m7hIYYPf8z9/s1600/starling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNpBu-xRft12SJvx9HIO4ggQuoPRxBbJE6j3POrkvukqiOTk3jOJFdiuzN-O_pxxRyrXGhm7egB79weEBC114VNMk7wuyDlBpTOo-r9iBx6OrPQpUoQ7xuLmUXeR20vMz86m7hIYYPf8z9/s400/starling.jpg" width="400" height="225" data-original-width="768" data-original-height="432" /></a></div><br />
POST-WINTER BIRD CLAMOUR<br />
<br />
<br />
The risen sun of July already<br />
Sounds through with starling<br />
Whistles and the coos of doves:<br />
As if the birds know what it is<br />
That the climate tinkerers lost. <br />
<br />
30 July 2017<br />
Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-42786679216008011912017-08-20T19:15:00.000-07:002017-08-20T19:15:45.559-07:00New Holland Honeyeater<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkzX1EC6RBe4kWnRL49rrYy1UeJpGB064MkG8ul9ir1FgSZy6vv5JhDEiXOImG8a5VCFYuCtp9rnA5EA_AoBjLj1Yoqgg7P1tw73I5K8uY4Ij1_XX2VcaTtAGPurvOBESvy9YPFfWnKX5a/s1600/new+holland+honeyeater.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkzX1EC6RBe4kWnRL49rrYy1UeJpGB064MkG8ul9ir1FgSZy6vv5JhDEiXOImG8a5VCFYuCtp9rnA5EA_AoBjLj1Yoqgg7P1tw73I5K8uY4Ij1_XX2VcaTtAGPurvOBESvy9YPFfWnKX5a/s640/new+holland+honeyeater.jpg" width="640" height="426" data-original-width="720" data-original-height="479" /></a></div><br />
NEW HOLLAND HONEYEATER <br />
<br />
- by Wayne David Knoll<br />
<br />
As if in a time of shared grief, as if that much<br />
tragedy unites, these seer-sprites remind of earlier<br />
Australian links to the merchant seafarer Dutch,<br />
come to the call of a New Holland Honeyeater <br />
<br />
(Phylidonyris Novaehollandiae), that mushes<br />
the currs off correa flowers and sips bottlebrushes<br />
a mere bird in gumleaf shape, in its pied camouflage, <br />
appears but a moment before our passing cage.<br />
<br />
'Tch Tch Tch,' it calls, in an alto like a sung sneeze<br />
nothing at all like a 'Tsk Tsk' of hateful scolding;<br />
more like affection's daily call to pets for cheese,<br />
a thing almost grand-parental, old, enfolding;<br />
<br />
as if a 'Tuck-in now', only pointier and sharper,<br />
like a chook calling its chickens only higher <br />
up the tree, the striated, beaked visitor of flowers<br />
works honey of all the tweaked daylight hours<br />
<br />
with sun-bright gold in quick flashes of its wing<br />
and a 'Tchuk touche' at day’s end and beginning.<br />
<br />
July 24, 2014Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-45277227526615703202017-08-19T07:06:00.001-07:002017-08-19T07:07:32.722-07:00Meeting Global Aliens in Australia Felix<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjIwK2Q4s9JO0LtUoyZ7eYhkaHYGfEdZzzrKzT8Dtv2EQP5Wj9B-GJQFVn7YYfsjd3i1Cf2gHg6CIBqWlpHjZWFSEhBNksVS6ipxLoj7AlDEOvtcIVE7jQuUYuSCiiVgYAULPWiFVA-VtX/s1600/new_holland_honeyeater_by_fuchsia_flowers_v.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjIwK2Q4s9JO0LtUoyZ7eYhkaHYGfEdZzzrKzT8Dtv2EQP5Wj9B-GJQFVn7YYfsjd3i1Cf2gHg6CIBqWlpHjZWFSEhBNksVS6ipxLoj7AlDEOvtcIVE7jQuUYuSCiiVgYAULPWiFVA-VtX/s640/new_holland_honeyeater_by_fuchsia_flowers_v.jpg" width="427" height="640" data-original-width="500" data-original-height="750" /></a></div><br />
<br />
MEETING THE GLOBAL ALIENS OUT IN THE CORANGAMITE<br />
<br />
<br />
In this southern global <br />
summer of morning on the Western Plains <br />
named by the surveyor <br />
explorer Major Thomas Livingstone Mitchell <br />
as Australia Felix, himself <br />
named for the African explorer David Livingstone,<br />
one long and slim bird <br />
with the flash of candled world sunlight on its wing,<br />
<br />
a New Holland Honeyeater, <br />
that is, Phylidonyris novaehollandiae,<br />
named by the British <br />
ornithologist John Latham in 1781, who took post <br />
of taxidermised specimens <br />
sent him by Sir Joseph Banks, hangs like <br />
a suckling at the breast <br />
from a garden where the old fashioned Fuschias,<br />
<br />
and this is the pink-red <br />
Fuchsia Magellanica flower in the long-trousers of <br />
its bells in a Genus <br />
which French Minim monk and botanist, Charles Plumier,<br />
called after his foxy <br />
friend & colleague, German botanist Leonhart Fuchs,<br />
and that originate <br />
from Chile and Argentina, of old Gondwanaland,<br />
<br />
but in the Cono Sur zone <br />
of Andean and temperate South America <br />
in a Species named <br />
for the Straits of Magellan, which, in turn of course<br />
were named for Ferdinand <br />
Magellan, the well-known intrepid Portuguese <br />
explorer and navigator, <br />
and also known as the hummingbird fuchsia,<br />
<br />
are confluent here, <br />
translated here, <br />
here meet: as is meet and good;<br />
as if all the languages <br />
and botanists and avian science and the explorers <br />
of far flung places and lands <br />
were met with here in this, as Banks and Fuchs <br />
meet Latham and Plumier <br />
and Magellan and Livingstone meet Mitchell;<br />
<br />
all well met in the nectar <br />
that the host of Magellanica fuschia weeps<br />
and which an early-bird <br />
novaehollandiae honeyeater intrepidly imbibes;<br />
a simple bird drinking <br />
from a simple garden flower in a simple - like it <br />
was a call to go, to name, <br />
a peeling carillion of red-clad global bells.<br />
<br />
<br />
Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-17729665493813377782017-08-19T06:56:00.001-07:002017-08-19T06:57:02.254-07:00Gorook Song - (Australian Magpie Song) <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9a4GpyIR7xDmT-tHVRyhBWeJPZh7_XTXjPk2YwfHPpSD7-TW-zsBDQYA5c1oCpRgO0aF0HpTN4ZGGkKuWogcm7L4Y98dvfDLIwZVkK-zeDbVghrim6CCyechLAYeXGMC4KzZGXqiCHfjE/s1600/Magpie+4020412514_9647fe17b4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9a4GpyIR7xDmT-tHVRyhBWeJPZh7_XTXjPk2YwfHPpSD7-TW-zsBDQYA5c1oCpRgO0aF0HpTN4ZGGkKuWogcm7L4Y98dvfDLIwZVkK-zeDbVghrim6CCyechLAYeXGMC4KzZGXqiCHfjE/s640/Magpie+4020412514_9647fe17b4.jpg" width="640" height="640" data-original-width="500" data-original-height="500" /></a></div><br />
GOROOK SONG (AUSTRALIAN MAGPIE SONG) <br />
<br />
- by Wayne David Knoll<br />
<br />
Light washes dark sky with its call out<br />
For a first word as the song of the birds.<br />
<br />
Hey hey sunshine that comes after rain<br />
Hey heaven come after traverses thru’ hell<br />
Pheyew, rip rip up the fabric, here we are<br />
By hell, zip zip down the world we’ll go.<br />
<br />
The tree necks a break for the hard weather<br />
It’s branch offers a table to cling out a wait.<br />
<br />
Hey hey sunshine that comes after rain<br />
Here’s heaven come after traversing hell<br />
Phew, rip rip up the fabric, here we are<br />
By hell, zip zip down the sky we’ll go.<br />
<br />
A ladder-climb up the sky beats an air drum<br />
To mount joust and not lose to proud eagles<br />
<br />
Hey hey sunshine that comes after rain<br />
Hey heaven come after traverses thru’ hell<br />
Pheyew, rip rip up the fabric, here we are<br />
By hell, zip zip down the world we’ll go.<br />
<br />
For pied-birds rent the air owed the gum-trees<br />
We pay a life-lease in a death-pledge of song.<br />
<br />
Hey hey sunshine that comes after rain<br />
Hey heaven come after traverses thru’ hell<br />
Pheyew, rip rip up the fabric, here we are<br />
By hell, zip zip down the world we’ll go.<br />
<br />
A dive writes on broad-black with a chalk-edge,<br />
In winged claw at knife-point as swoop bloods.<br />
<br />
Hey hey sunshine that comes after rain<br />
Here’s heaven come after traversing hell<br />
Phew, rip rip up the fabric, here we are<br />
By hell, zip zip down the sky we’ll go.<br />
<br />
The wires of human-kind are bow strung<br />
To be tuned by us pied birds of great airs.<br />
<br />
Hey hey sunshine that comes after rain<br />
Hey heaven come after traverses thru’ hell<br />
Pheyew, rip rip up the fabric, here we are<br />
By hell, zip zip down the world we’ll go.<br />
<br />
<br />
July 2014Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-86026431724397724032017-08-19T06:46:00.000-07:002017-08-19T07:17:20.880-07:00Gatherer of Thistledown<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGPStYsMnpWxzJuyTYk_ENTrQ-tYz-JitWcRq5r-SaervcZL9ZzznR7opka4CLJWFbJLp18rHCMmE59e5hWRiivXbs61x80-RLZrIHrB0Tq2UjCkLvJRIsKVaww5ZEbFnBVivoOFvKb25u/s1600/goldfinch+on+blossom.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGPStYsMnpWxzJuyTYk_ENTrQ-tYz-JitWcRq5r-SaervcZL9ZzznR7opka4CLJWFbJLp18rHCMmE59e5hWRiivXbs61x80-RLZrIHrB0Tq2UjCkLvJRIsKVaww5ZEbFnBVivoOFvKb25u/s640/goldfinch+on+blossom.JPG" width="640" height="640" data-original-width="417" data-original-height="417" /></a></div><br />
<br />
GATHERER OF THISTLEDOWN<br />
<br />
<br />
Goldfinch: quick as silver<br />
on its mantle, on its collar;<br />
fast wedgebill, seedeater,<br />
gatherer of thistledown, it<br />
<br />
flies up in a quick jerk <br />
to wind-leap the air hurdles<br />
and down to the outer twig<br />
that flickers, hardly bends.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-4709381145315211332017-08-19T06:35:00.002-07:002017-08-19T06:35:37.122-07:00Goldfinches Twitter<br />
GOLDFINCHES TWITTER<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeD1pfnHEZharRJZsFX1-fZAtkNjODKiVQCaNzsBwVchM31Jt2GkQsgkoJsXcG1zVo-yhEP5UVupIuIW4EFpa6JHKQeHXCa-rWnrKKhjafokwLH82ADlAF5k_m1UtjUaqLG_Fir14o5aXH/s1600/goldfinch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeD1pfnHEZharRJZsFX1-fZAtkNjODKiVQCaNzsBwVchM31Jt2GkQsgkoJsXcG1zVo-yhEP5UVupIuIW4EFpa6JHKQeHXCa-rWnrKKhjafokwLH82ADlAF5k_m1UtjUaqLG_Fir14o5aXH/s640/goldfinch.jpg" width="640" height="479" data-original-width="259" data-original-height="194" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Goldfinches twitter, their<br />
calls fill the Spring, short<br />
messages as if bi-locating<br />
<br />
each to each; calls twang<br />
like wires plucked by angels<br />
mantled in robes of yellow<br />
<br />
as if aware of the mirror-selves<br />
of their transfixing beauty,<br />
they must twitter and twitter<br />
<br />
to keep their kind birdbrained,<br />
to know that they're not alone<br />
to stay waked from reflection.Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-16271070914483919802017-08-19T06:30:00.000-07:002017-08-19T06:30:41.204-07:00Anonymous, Until Its Voice<br />
<br />
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<br />
ANONYMOUS, UNTIL ITS VOICE <br />
<br />
<br />
It is a plain Australian grey thrush, <br />
more exactly titled a Strike-Thrush<br />
commonly the harmonious thrush.<br />
<br />
<br />
It's not usually noticed until it calls;<br />
as if 'Colluricincla harmonica' is the<br />
voice Anonymous takes as a bird.<br />
<br />
<br />
Like sweet water between stones he's<br />
our liquid songster on watch of terra australia <br />
striking pleasing, glorious, melodious notes.<br />
<br />
<br />
I once heard one way remote, way east of Alice<br />
Springs, like cool water inside dry canyons walls;<br />
and I heard one yesterday in my own backyard<br />
<br />
<br />
and still am left in song echoes, feeling visited.Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-56814765802875944282017-08-19T06:27:00.000-07:002017-08-19T07:13:57.501-07:00Rosella Calls<br />
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<br />
<br />
ROSELLA CALLS<br />
<br />
Eastern Rosella's cry their ode<br />
In flight out of my garden plot<br />
As if signaling in raw Morse Code: <br />
Dot-dot. Pause. Dot-dot.<br />
<br />
Like a poem by Les Murray<br />
About a way these parrots fly;<br />
Wings open; wings shut, then open<br />
Dot-dot. Pause. Morse Code for I.<br />
<br />
Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-70375772806690910022016-10-02T16:23:00.000-07:002017-08-19T07:15:45.379-07:00Blood Wattles<br />
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<br />
<br />
BLOOD WATTLES<br />
<br />
<br />
The rogue Australian wattle bird <br />
isn't named for the Australian tree <br />
of the golden plumage<br />
but for its little earlobe-like pendant wattles<br />
that hang like stirrup bobs <br />
off each side as outriggers to <br />
the quick-offense in its head.<br />
<br />
Where I am it's a red wattle sort <br />
that coughs and guffaws from shrubs <br />
and street trees, and go brawling <br />
together, smoking though the scrub;<br />
it shakes its earless pendants as ember<br />
as if for hot status among its kind, <br />
blood-fighting all species, fast<br />
winged goths of the south.<br />
<br />
Flying yachts of the lower airs,<br />
fighting wattlebirds have spinnakers<br />
as tails like third wings that rudder <br />
them all about to make them<br />
ever shifting, ever elsewhere,<br />
mere whirlpools of wind<br />
where they have been...<br />
<br />
And when they call cooee <br />
just like other Australians,<br />
the special air-service soldiers<br />
of this attack force in camouflage,<br />
they've already left pollinating <br />
all the heady honeyed flowers <br />
of the blood they protect.<br />
<br />
- October 3, 2015 <br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg22xgWwwLMHVzxJUo4m1mUe3G1i41jHYqOnyYjeL2AHSKtK1nkPB-ojoqux_B0csNM6n4dLeYISbJMWcksbZaILBO8SKXwRuNu3CjWgxCWm8ZixXPFkcuSlXn-xG6cEE9DTdDBhSdWjKh4/s1600/red+wattle+bird+fight+4+low+reso.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg22xgWwwLMHVzxJUo4m1mUe3G1i41jHYqOnyYjeL2AHSKtK1nkPB-ojoqux_B0csNM6n4dLeYISbJMWcksbZaILBO8SKXwRuNu3CjWgxCWm8ZixXPFkcuSlXn-xG6cEE9DTdDBhSdWjKh4/s640/red+wattle+bird+fight+4+low+reso.jpg" width="640" height="399" data-original-width="800" data-original-height="499" /></a></div>Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-70405420086771093872016-04-21T02:54:00.001-07:002016-04-21T03:09:46.508-07:00Call of the Torquatus<br />
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<br />
<blockquote><b>CALL OF THE TORQUATUS </b><br />
<br />
<br />
An anonyous pedestrian <br />
Of the most tortuous of roads<br />
The roads that are not! is our<br />
The Pedionomus torquatus<br />
With night calls like a snoring ghost.<br />
<br />
Our Australian Plains-wanderer<br />
That is a wide plains region's totem bird goads<br />
Those who dwell there with ears for the plain<br />
With the call of its regular haunting absence <br />
Its vast unseenness by all of us. <br />
<br />
* * *</blockquote>Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-62583527540880755052016-04-21T02:19:00.000-07:002016-04-21T02:31:37.111-07:00Blue Crane Baby <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkazGqMxTRss5-27fnZVlBx-mhl8WjqI9Y2wfLGGn7_YGWlx8ckucS99qFdnE4UOFSJAxb3x34OhipNkkWIdeS_Zp_JE1WTqNgYBDQOZfJmOEXpWpCntOKKXTzPJDEyYRgB7CXjNS7vP47/s1600/Blue+Heron+Chick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkazGqMxTRss5-27fnZVlBx-mhl8WjqI9Y2wfLGGn7_YGWlx8ckucS99qFdnE4UOFSJAxb3x34OhipNkkWIdeS_Zp_JE1WTqNgYBDQOZfJmOEXpWpCntOKKXTzPJDEyYRgB7CXjNS7vP47/s400/Blue+Heron+Chick.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<blockquote><b>BLUE CRANE BABY</b><br />
<br />
<br />
Aloof it might be, but some gawking mother loves<br />
Her blue crane baby<br />
A gauche thing of oversized beak and giblet claw<br />
<br />
<br />
Bare of feather, its cry behoves<br />
A scale of ancient origins brought forward to this day<br />
As a dwarf heir and croaking descendant of the dinosaur.</blockquote>Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1715999631342512422.post-37827447479350363472016-04-21T01:56:00.002-07:002016-04-21T02:00:40.873-07:00Djitgun <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb6-384JGaQXQ0lMDYYRLyHl0iYMs9NoTkmDSobPBTf9RN8L-Odc_LhbI7_us5n13FEl1NlF9qql8vpeQZTcTlMX5kiAQ3kk5BI9TvaWwJR-z7EHafHKxewfnL-1DCGmb-ka4Fis23otYh/s1600/blue+wren.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb6-384JGaQXQ0lMDYYRLyHl0iYMs9NoTkmDSobPBTf9RN8L-Odc_LhbI7_us5n13FEl1NlF9qql8vpeQZTcTlMX5kiAQ3kk5BI9TvaWwJR-z7EHafHKxewfnL-1DCGmb-ka4Fis23otYh/s400/blue+wren.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<blockquote>DJITGUN - (Wurrundjeri)- for the Superb Fairy Blue-Wren<br />
<br />
<i>- alternative (Djeetgun - (Kurnai) Gippsland; Deegd'gun - (Dja Dja Wurrung) Central Victoria )</i><br />
<br />
* * *<br />
<br />
Low flyer, scimmer <br />
of leaves <br />
and branches, zipper<br />
of the outer foliage <br />
and opener<br />
of the inner, <br />
he snaps<br />
insects from their<br />
temporary rests,<br />
taking them eternally,<br />
and calls <br />
his ladies along<br />
so the troop work <br />
the miasma<br />
till it's zapped <br />
and emptied;<br />
then fed, feathered tight<br />
with pride <br />
he flies up stage<br />
to bend a tallest scrub twig<br />
and with a blued voice <br />
he twitters <br />
his azure hallelujah.</blockquote>Wayne D Knollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03668022975795483457noreply@blogger.com0