Although he has a will built strong,

Bluebark’s the songless currawong.

His voice is dry as sun-parched clay,

Plucks yet, its strings most everyday,

With sirens lures and psalms and sighs,

With hopeless hymns and lullabies,

As sun first sweeps o’er sleeping earth,

His futile croaks cease bloom to verse.

So persists he stalwart-steady,

With dimpled down grown dark already,

He’s fledged, and flown and fed enough

To grow—as well—his choral lust.

Maturing fast turns black to blue:

Persistent tears lures lust anew.

Grows stale his morn’s in search of song,

Bluebark’s the songless currawong.

Lone pilgrimage will find what’s lost,

To learn what brings the wings aloft,

To beckon forth ballad from beak,

A fowl's symphonic soul he seeks.

The sigh that whispers through the breeze,

To Galah, grassbird, goose and grebe,

From fairy-wren, thornbill through fantail,

Redthroat, finch, thrush, fowl to swamp quail.

The treetops throws ballads a-clutter

Bright kingfisher to kookaburra.

Thus BlueBark’s search neath’ branch and stone,

Must bring his dear lost song-voice home,

To lonesome place tween’ spine and keel,

And bid his handsome heart to heal.

His brave birds brosom shall along;

Bluebark’s the songless currawong.

To start: he’ll ask the nearest nest,

Where rhapsodes learn best to progress,

Lest joi de vivre forever dries

In rhymless bard’s ill-met demise.

Perched on long branch of tall plane tree,

He peeks slow through the leaves to see,

These dim dark brutes with frightful eyes,

Veiling vile acts in strange disguise:

Instead of blood-soaked wrath afoot,

Is cradled babes, in beaks they put

Chewed larvae for their kin to eat,

Though with wild rage his eyes did meet.

They glared with heat of fiery bowels,

These black-downed red-eyed angry fowls.

So clearing throat and steeling will,

Forth from his beak this plea did spill:

“Oh magpies, friends of feathered flaps”

“Oh Insect eaters, treetop-traps.”

“My piebald kin of songbird fame,”

“Shall kin avail my noble aim?”

“My vocal-cords are all a shrivel,”

“Neglected to this desperate drivel,

“Lept’ forth from heart to kindly ear,”

“Where to possess a song-voice clear?”

“This heart is brave but shant hold long,”

“I am the songless currawong.”

“No seconds are spare,”

“Now, when nests must be made fair,”

“As flame trees start to flare.”

“Your times well spent to right this slight—””

“Urges without sight”

“Now soot-feathered, sick with flight,”

“Urges skies alight.”

“I have a pure and noble need—”

“He cannot perceive.”

“Rich in figs glosed waxy leaves,”

“Songs that he recieves.”

And when poor Bluebark next tried to speak

They gave his nobel beak a tweak

With talons clenched a steeley grey

Swung and scrapped artamidae.

Wise Bluebark knew t’was time to flee

And seldom flew sea-clad osprey

Or nesting tern with fish in sight

Or spinebill midst a wattle plight.

But what was worse was when he fled

Was poisen fruits from which ears fed:

The flutish chords that pealed so true,

Like churchchimes heard within the pew.

Pans flautists sung ambrosial tune,

And Bluebark envied magpies boon,

And wondered what great cosmic wrong,

Condemned him songless currawong.

Though beaten down he was indeed,

None yet could curb his choral need.

He summoned strength to push through air

pilgrimidg’ed next the city lair.

The pigeons nest lurks betwixt grey

Of hungry roads where aves go stray.

Vast hollow bones stipple wide streets

That lurch from birth of bleached concretes

Of whirling, churling, hungry beasts

Of scavenged bread and plastic feasts.

Wedged and crammed, tween and among:

Approached the songless currawong.

Jammed inside a rooftop gutter

Thrummed the hum from gruffish nutters

Discerning eyes veiled over with glass

Bassline swung through overpass.

Bluebark was loath to catch a glance:

Teal-lilac necks, grey doves entranced,

But met with “hey” and then a holler

He rose to meet the rooftop squalor.

“Who’s this young cat? “

“who won’t walk it but he’ll talk it?”

“Sunlight feathers satin black,”

“butter yellow sockets”

“—And we know a thing about that—”

“He’s got no dimes in his pockets,”

“So play it pussycat!”

“You’ve gotta learn to walk it!”

“Excuse me sirs if I may say,”

“I’ve come to quiz columbidae.”

“Though no cat, I may as well”

“Trade in my wings for yarn and bell.”

“Mews entangl’d in bramble lungs,”

“Dormant sonnets erode unsung”

“Reprobe the throat where they belong,”

“And curse me songless currawong.”

“Mais oui! Mais oui!

“matter of fact”

“May we decree,”

“White spots on a cat”

“wont change bad luck,”

“won’t change his black,”

“And all those pocks,”

“Where riff gets stuck,”

“And song gets rocked”

“reek like a musk duck.”

“plug those up.”

“Declared now twice, I’m no feline”

“From aves hooked claw to birdly spine”

“Here, my crop, my crown, cloaca”

“Gizzard and the beak that make her”

“Excrete seeds and bugs and fruits”

“No knowledge yet has borne these hoots.”

“Stop your yowling and howling”

“Bound to choke on your furballs with that”

“mewing and growling.”

“You’re hissing at something swell”

“While your bread-crumb trail”

“Gone out and fell”

“All over our gutter,”

“And it’s got an ode that sticks like hell!”

“I beg you’ll listen to me please”

“And stop this aimless nonsense sleaze.

“A retort to my desperate refrain”

“A tune, how does one catch and claim?”

“We say tangs stay in the air,”

“You say you wanna catch them.”

“We say it's a done affair,”

“So you caterwaul and cash in.”

“Kitty likes his lightning spooned,”

“And likes his bells all slower.”

“Likes his distance from a loon,”

“And likes our voices lower.”

And in that very same instant

The pigeons took up babbles and chants.

These cuckoos wildy danced all round

With a baritone and throaty sound.

As koel-birds bid bienvenue spring

Bid adueu wit that once did cling.

Bluebark huffed and turned his back

Like migrant godwit; off he rack’d

Till reaching one vast mute meadow

There flew past a fast cloud of swallows.

These acrobats of stringless faith

That only gales may keep in pace.

He called forth desperete for their heed

And they increased their needle speed;

Thread through dusk like string through silk

Ignored they, their songless, weeping ilk.

Nightfall gently covered over

—Like down’d duvet—grass and clover

Traded swallows for pale nightjars

As boobooks took the place of mynahs.

Sonorous reverberations

Moonlight’s fleeting abberations

Bluebark felt a shiv’ring creep

From his crown to talons seep

And realised he was all alone

In strange dark place long ways from home.

He fled the meadow for near treeline

And set upon low branch to find

Slight scurries coming from below

‘Midst blue-black night like plume’d drongo.

That was when the moon was blotted

By shadow over vast roots knotted

This massive shape that darkened stars

Its feath’ry edges roaming far

The spottled figure rose each wing

And Gold eyes shone from lumb’ring thing

Like the sun eclipsed by moon,

Like yellowooded tree-stump hewn.

It gave a deep hoo-hu thrice times

Adjusted its grasp upon the pine.

“What purpose serve, this lonesome downed thing”

“Grown naught into the bloom of his plumage”

“Birdlimed secure upon midnight’s foul sting.”

“His breast bewitched with dread’s sharp perfumage.”

“Swaying upon the branch which he has sat,”

“As tremors resound through his wind-chilled blood.”

“Fates attachment which such a seat begat;”

“The encounter that wise destiny made bud.”

“Though amidst a black loam of terror”

“—That brings to fruit from its vile earth, horror—”

“Wise destiny will not make error,”

“For your hopes may meet their kind restorer.”

“Although your journeys cruel and long,”

“Speak true now, songless currawong.”

“Stranger, you show this young thing mercy

“For he is lone and things are lurking.”

“You are a vast, dark, spotted titan”

“I am the oaf that night does frighten.”

“You taste the fear upon my plume,”

“And wrought yourself a mighty tune,”

“And know you, what I have ceased to tell,”

“Grim life of songlessness I befell.”

“The muses ire has poured forth from heaven,”

“Bringing drought to your springs and brookes”

“And now when the hour has passed eleven,”

“Such long journeys shall not stay overlooked.”

“For with your crown above your shoulder,”

“You’ve journed pathless, naught a shining south crux.”

“Though, ignorance reigns with naught to hold her.”

“Vital mindfullness has all at once fluxed.”

“You’ve journed’ and failed to heed the tidings”

“Of older wise aves to which you have spoke.”

“But heed this; gaze up ‘tward heaven’s slow chimings”

“‘Bove treetops’ fingers stretched like skyward smoke.”

“Heed close indeed the great old swan selene.”

“Heed close indeed, her warbled silver keen.”

So sitting still and closing beak

To Bluebarks ear moonsong did leak

Soprano of stardusted silk

Fed Bluebark of the cosmic milk

It sounded of the eastern waves

The tinkling sand the shoreline paves

The rush of wind neath first-fledged wing

Tea trees and orange jessamine

Summer smoke from gums and grass

Dirt just before the rain does pass

Ripe’ning lillypilly pink

The gathinring dust away does blink

Bunya nuts that fall from sky

The iron barks whose leaves do sigh.

“My heart is pleased, my mind is stalled.”

“By what name is such music called?”

“Comprehension is a fast soothing balm”

“For the festering wounds that craves egress”

“But needless is comprehension to a psalm”

“For balms fleetingly abide but by mere flesh.”

“Though you’ve chased so long your birdsong spectre,”

“Find now, new sorts of song that paint the skies,”

“Lest you spurn the grub in search of necter,”

‘Making a famine where abundance lies’

“Now, gaze at violets and new-spined hakeas”

“And wake from self-perserved song-apnoea.”

And soon noon gently softened past

Sharp darkness that the night had caste,

And with moonsong fresh bloomed in ear,

Bluebark flew away.

Written by Sofia Dillon.

Hi, I'm Sofia; a young writer experimenting with all the forms of writing I can get my paws on, and trying to find the space to be both whimsical and thoughtful. Writing is where I try to figure out all the bits and bobs that are floating around in my brain. No matter how much I write though, the bits and bobs have a tendency to stay clattering about in there. So I keep writing.