I AM HOMESICK
For the early morning chorus
of the Ozzy bush - it’s sheer racket!
Though not my motherland
it is still the blue-white sphere I belong to
every inch, my ancestral home.
The mists run ghosty up the valleys,
- native sprites of dreamy dance
as they drift and swirl up every gully,
their tendril arms, touching, receding
weaving like mythic devas
every stump, boulder, tree, hillock
recognised, blessed.
Lying a-bed or trudging the day-break sopped with dew
the orchestra prelude breaks out,
the canticle each morning
from every feathered throat
discordantly in harmony,
before the first worm or gnat awakes.
…
The monkish man-thing, prone to praise,
wont to rise in the cock-crowing hour
and get down on his knees
as night-jars chirrup and owls screech;
or dons wellies in the half light
and slinks out the door,
old moon tilting over the horizon
as the first birds call to prayer
Get up! Get out!
Tramp the heavenly earth!
Breath it’s blissful air!