ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

THE ORIGINAL MIGRANTS




Migrating geese fly stark and black against a silvered sky,
in formation heading north to warmer climes.
Why do they follow this hereditary urge?
It’s a genetic, prehistoric response from far earlier times.

The Bible says - even the stork her appointed time knows
and the dove, the crane and swallow know as well.
When still drawing water from the earth by a bucket and chain
wondrous tales of bird migration storytellers could tell.

They told of how day turned to night. How the sun disappeared
hidden behind the wings of feathered flight.
How a breeze came from their passing and how ears rang to the sound
of their calls – from each horizon flocks of birds filled line of sight.

Noted in eighteen sixty six a flock of huge dimensions
took fourteen hours to pass by overhead.
The estimate? Three and a half billion birds.
Passenger pigeons. Seen no more, species now extinct – long dead.

It would be wrong to doubt the reasoning behind bird’s flights
though scientific minds can no doubt fathom why
they do it – how they navigate, how they seem to remember
the long route they travel as ‘cross continents and seas they fly.

It’s an instinct that the Mother gives – survival is the game.
One can but marvel hearing their avian cries
as they fly in tight formation on their annual migration
or wheel and soar resplendently above in azure skies.


Maureen Clifford © 07/11

I got the story Maureen but found it very hard to read. Really jaunty if thats the correct word !

Not your usual flowing style ?


Bob

My maths are hopeless, but I think Maureen has used a pattern of matching the number of syllables, as distinct from a pattern of syllabic stresses.

I think in this type of construction one has to try and keep each sentence in the active voice and have Subject/Verb/Object in that strict order as far as possible or there is a risk of weakening the effect. I could be wrong, just my thoughts.

Good on ya Maureen. I liked it.

Thank you Neville - I am amazed I did all those things that you said.. ..I just wrote it, but I am really happy you liked it.

I don't think jaunty is the right word Bob - I was doing one of my meaning of life poems it was meant to be taken seriously I have just about finished reading The Land of Painted Caves so the philosophies of she who is first might be rubbing off. I could perhaps have been a Zelandoni in a previous life

Cheers

Maureen

How did you get a copy of the Painted Caves I'm still waiting for the library to contact me ???

Send it up when you are finished you have my address ???

I'll pay the freight


Bob

Fat chance Bob it weighs a ton - I bought the hard cover copy from Big W on special - too impatient to wait for the soft cover paperback. I am just about dislocating my shoulder every night reading it in bed - it is well over 600 pages