Black Cockatoos

Wild cries echoing across skies

Weeyah Weeyah Weeyah …

Silhouettes against the blue

Powerful wings in steady beat

Down up down up down up …

Fanning the air in summer heat.

Slow, majestic, swift, purposeful,

In pairs, sixes, flocks thirty strong

Wheeling, circling, surging along.

Resting in a gum tree, chatting convivially,

Feasting in a pine tree, working silently,

Great bills shredding cones,

Shredding cones, shredding cones,

Leaving litter like a letter:

‘Black cockies have been here.’

Haunting calls fade away

Weeyah Weeyah Weeyah …

Christobel Mattingley