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Date
Covid Corvids.
April 2020
Always from the north, strung out like stars across the sky,
they came.
Growing louder, larger, in ever increasing flocks.
Crops stuffed with glazed-eyed travellers
mechanically pecking
at packets of nuts.
Tipping wine into upturned mouths.
Torsos squishing into seats, limbs pouring over armrests
like Angophora roots over rocks.
Never ending waves of stiff winged corvids.
Disgorging swarms onto tarmac wastelands like a plague, a virus.
Before once more rising
moving money and men,
filling the sky with noise and pollution and people.
Once upon a childhood,
catching distant vibrations of an approaching roar
we’d race each other outside.
Chins jutting upwards, bare feet twirling bodies in circles,
small hands sheltering foreheads,
thumbs curling under eyes making imaginary binoculars
searching blue African skies.
Eager to be first to spot it,
to point it out,
to decide where it was going.
China,
America,
England,
Australia!
In our world, no plane ever arrived!
Now, stars seldom travel from the north over Sydney skies.
Elastic stretched, beads smaller, gaps between them growing larger.
Overstretched, the sparkling necklace
breaks.
Stringing washing on the line, I hear the roar of a solitary aircraft.
Looking up I wonder...
Could we once more stare in awe,
marvelling at the magic of our flight?
April 2020
Always from the north, strung out like stars across the sky,
they came.
Growing louder, larger, in ever increasing flocks.
Crops stuffed with glazed-eyed travellers
mechanically pecking
at packets of nuts.
Tipping wine into upturned mouths.
Torsos squishing into seats, limbs pouring over armrests
like Angophora roots over rocks.
Never ending waves of stiff winged corvids.
Disgorging swarms onto tarmac wastelands like a plague, a virus.
Before once more rising
moving money and men,
filling the sky with noise and pollution and people.
Once upon a childhood,
catching distant vibrations of an approaching roar
we’d race each other outside.
Chins jutting upwards, bare feet twirling bodies in circles,
small hands sheltering foreheads,
thumbs curling under eyes making imaginary binoculars
searching blue African skies.
Eager to be first to spot it,
to point it out,
to decide where it was going.
China,
America,
England,
Australia!
In our world, no plane ever arrived!
Now, stars seldom travel from the north over Sydney skies.
Elastic stretched, beads smaller, gaps between them growing larger.
Overstretched, the sparkling necklace
breaks.
Stringing washing on the line, I hear the roar of a solitary aircraft.
Looking up I wonder...
Could we once more stare in awe,
marvelling at the magic of our flight?