StylusLit

September 2020

Back to Issue 8

dry run

By Brenda Saunders

 

    tall grasses crowd the ditch 

    last remnant 

    of a shifting creek                        

 

    budgerigars flash yellow

    a thousand wings lift

    a scree scree to the sky

 

   on the turn a green dazzle 

   swarms in formation 

   sinks in dusty reeds

                

   at sunset insects hum 

   the marshy pond, swarm 

   a yellow fuzz in mimosa 

 

   crimson chats flame 

   in spiky reeds. 

   afraid of stillness 

   

   they flit, whirr 

   too fast for our eyes to catch 

   their life slowed down

  

   to endless days 

   in cumbungi

                                           

   a hundred ink blots totter 

   down a sloping bank    

   native hens on red pins 

   

   smudge into shadow                                             

   slow as a river in drought

   they sip one by one                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

   flee at the call of a kite

   cruising overhead.