Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos

Random as rags whooshed off a truck,
         they indolently amble on the air. This caterwaul:
                  wee-la. Yes, there,

husky, high. It seems an idle sortie,
         a lope of meander-flight, a frittering in the eye
                  of foul weather.

Gale winds begin to split and peel
         a suburb of weather-board husks, but the flock
                  keeps following its memory-grid

to grubs in weakened trees. (Birds like these
         saw dinosaurs plod through dust.)
                  They prise, rip,

rasher the acacia bark, and change trees,
         wheeling and veering like black Venetian blinds
                  collapsed at one end.

Then they dip, curious,
         to an English willow;
                  shimmy down bare verticals on hinge-claws;

whir out
         on a glissade of whoops:
                  concertina-tailed, splay-winged, wailing.

© James Charlton