A brilliant blue rising from a bronze morning
& Brown Honeyeaters are circling the garden.

Today, they’re in the olive tree in my neighbour’s
yard, performing aerial songs (it’s more a short

sharp, tweet). Before spring, I counted two regular
visitors to our horticulture of Canna lilies, Yellow

Bird-of-Paradise, Grevillea, Frangipani, now there are
four! As if in concert, they dance, plunging to & fro.

It’s balletic, reminding you of Rudolf Nureyev & Dame
Margot Fonteine in Romeo & Juliet. One of the

fledglings is as graceful as Maria Kochetkova, a
Giselle fluttering her wings, thin as the veil of a tutu.

There’s fussing from parents, followed by a preen on
brick wall and hedge, a bird commotion of tutelage.

The best is their closeness, high in the branches, and now
that the young are fed and sleepy, the show has stopped.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL (c) 2024: Published in Australian Children’s Poetry and in the Bimblebox 153 Birds