Page 11 - eMuse Vol.9 No.03_Classical

They’ve already checked in at a base camp where a handful of
heroes bide,
And as the sadness seeps into our souls, we’re on sensory override.
Let a grateful nation consecrate where these splendid warriors died,
And for each carve a shield in stainless steel, for that earth’s now
sanctified.
Let their faces be seen on silos, in the sectors where they lived,
Have their stories preselected when the very best are sieved,
Let their chests be decorated with a mighty emblematic CV,
A sensitively commissioned stable mate, to the Iron Cross or a VC.

AUSTRALIA … COURAGE Prehistoric Songbirds

UNDER FIRE… 2019…2020 of Australia

A Sensitively Commissioned Stable Mate …
Searchers have just announced they’ve found the remnants of
This season’s fires will concede to armoured columns of rain, ancient songbirds in Australia, the oldest of their type ever found.
As green shoots rise to spark our eyes across the torched hillsides again, My mind leapt at the thought of them perched out along an early
As the giant red orange swordsmen fall back then dissipate, gum bough, piping their sonnets to a younger sun, healing an
To re-engage the great outdoors again through its grand self- audience after the dusty red spurt of the kill, calming the labour
opening gate, wards in the vine forests of the Top End.
From the towering palisades refrain of pure all conquering glorious rain.
I see them in exotic colours, electric blues and blast furnace
And the charcoaled ash will meld and make a mix of better soil, orange and a pure green just taken from the pots of the colour-
For genies dance in fond romance when life is on the boil, makers before inbreeding and blending. The dinosaurs must have
And it seems quite still and stark right now; seems life is a cancelled show, heard them. Their songs would have quietened their gigantic
But there’s a monstrous miracle on the make in the subsoils down below. hearts. Their concerts would have been free, standing room only.
The volunteers will be rested, the brigades will stow their gear, God’s Father would have had a hand in songbird development. It
By the million hearts arc welded to the mast of the volunteer, would have been a different branch of creation, a small expert
The warriors from the war zones who turn up to a bell, design team, looking beyond perfection, fluked the songbird.
To fight the fearful demons from the deepest depths of hell. How long have your feathers slept in the dust? I can see your
When the world around is exploding and the heat’s a melting mace, young peering out of the log nest in the dark canopy born to
And your tears are blowtorched before they form, before they sing…
streak your face, Drinking at the creek of diamonds they are stunned by the beauty
And the flames are forming around you, comes the searing dreadful of their own reflection. Who coloured your feathers? Will science
doubt, one day wet the melodies in your dried throats? Play them over
If a wind change works its way down here, you might not make it out. my grave if you can find either. For now I find I’m listening to our
And your mate’s own home is under threat, the message has just local birdlife a little more closely than I did before, and it’s better
come through, than modern music .
And he hopes there’s another crew like ours who will fight for his
home and you .
Now Sydney’s in the crossbars from three converging fronts,
As fear invades the faces on Wiseman’s Ferries’ punts.
Right now Mallacoota’s necklaced by a ring of smoke and fire,
As a fire chief rates the molten thief as catastrophic, deadly, and dire,
With the roar of a core of freight trains, with fireballs for a track,
Hauling blood red orange freight cars, with their engines painted black.
Then the news jackhammers down our spines, seems we’ve paid the
ultimate cost,
Three firefighting volunteers …three young fathers are lost.
Soon down through the Southlands southern sides the pipes, the
pipes are callin’,
For down by a ridge at Anglers Rest another fire fighter ace has fallen.
And as this line goes down, the news comes in, with the serrated
edge of a battle hymn,
Zeus, the C130 Herc’s gone down and our thoughts fly as one to them,
That life saving American armada ... the three man US crew, fire
fighting’s crème de la crème,
As we commission the great choreographer to construct their requiem.

March 2020 eMuse 11