Kerri Shying R#5 What it is.

What it is.

The birds still sound the same today

the air so cold still carries scent

dodging strings of clinker smoke

winter jobs wait patient

for foot-stamping me and the eight-legged entourage

to come bandicooting

poking where our summer hands don’t dare

the red poincettia,  set down a hemisphere about, cries

now

now now

to the false Christmas it feels deep down there

in the roots

we don’t tell it,  just in case

the whole atmosphere might change

(it’s a bract not a flower too

but no-one needs to know)

Past Fassifern the waratahs are out

up high where the muttaburrasaurus can’t get them.