It may be named for looks, and the books
tell me it roosts by day, still as a branch,
head, body, tail aligned, oblique from the bole,
Edward G Robinson mouth tight shut
(no canary under bright light about to sing)
eyes reduced to slits - just an old, broken branch,
bark-mottled, one more eucalypt untidiness.
But in the fur of warm dark comes the throb,
(oh yes, I read it's territorial)
as if to warn far stars stay well aloft
a foghorn in the waters of the night -
or some dim car alarm at distance parked.
For it shares that with the frog's mouth too,
though somewhat lacking in the decibels,
to British ear some mechanism, sure.
We have no beeping, throbbing critters
except those insects, bowing at their wings
an aging ear no longer registers.
There it is again... till satisfied we go on in.
But in the pauses of our conversation,
the soft, persistent otherness of a reality
beyond our universe of discourse,
again, swims-in, again, so softly channeling.
......................
Thanks to Jacinta for her well-illustrated bird book with the fine drawing of the roosting Tawny Frogmouth.
