COCKATOOS Perched comfortably up there in the penthouse of our skyscraper gums, a white cockie selects a spray of leaves, nibbles into the gumnuts and then simply drops it all. ‘Vandals,’ fumes the Tidy Gardener, shaking his rake at the flock and those ho

COCKATOOS

Perched comfortably
up there in the penthouse
of our skyscraper gums,
a white cockie selects a spray of leaves,
nibbles into the gumnuts
and then simply drops it all.

‘Vandals,’ fumes the Tidy Gardener,
shaking his rake at the flock and
those hovering brush turkeys.

I pick up a gumnut.
Less than a centimetre wide,
when dried and up-ended,
out falls a pinch of seeds
the size of a full stop.

While I think about the size
difference between seed and tree,
an unseen larrikin
drops single gumnuts
that seem to target
my head and shoulders.

Hard hat, anyone?