i hear alarm calls of malabar giant squirrels / they're warning other creatures of predators / the spiny dormouse has left half-eaten elaeocarpus seeds on the trail back / rubus is fruiting / the hornbill calls / apparently in the northern lands they call the four hornbill species siblings who later migrated to different places / there's indrella crawling over a wood log / pretty red standing out amongst the dull brown / shell resting against xylaria / the stream has been growing louder / mushrooms are sprouting / stream glories whizz by / there are tiny tadpoles on the ground /puffballs are letting go of their spores in puffs / it is a good day

***

The birds shit on me.

One look at me and they let it go.

Colour of all my tshirts, they know

And the number plate of my car.

The day I am on a lovely date OR

The day when I get a new paint job,

They come flying in legions

With a whitewashing carpet bomb.

The birds swear at me.

With every tweet tweet tweet

I hear a twit, wet twat.

I open my window and shout

They shed feathers and flutter about.

I shoot a cannon in the air

They pretend to be dead 

They pretend to be scared.

Regardless of all show of might

I hear them sing bold songs at night.

The birds ruin my crops.

The pot with a face on it is useless

They plunder looking him in the eye.

Taxonomy is pointless, whatever the colour:

Black, scarlet, yellow or blue

They come riding hunger, old and new.

I spray DDT to teach them a lesson.

I spot a few stealing from my kitchen.

A bird conspires with my pet parrot.

She meets him every day for an hour.

They eat my chilli as he speaks my tongue

And she speaks in hers, she babbles.

I am uncertain if they get each other.

I give an ultimatum to the traitor

It's either her lies or me and my chilli

He looks me in the eye and yells

"Fuck you colonizer" as he flies away.

They have a child. He names her Hope.

I see Hope sometimes, 

On top of my car, over my shoulder, 

Outside my window (singing),

Over my fields (antagonizing the pot),

Shitting, Swearing, and Snacking

As if she has a right over everything.

As if everything I have is her own.

Hope terrifies me.

***

Be, and I was. Falling through the fog

Written Law on the corpses of my children,

I saw their ashes and leather mingle

Man send signals from their cremation

I witnessed the Birth of a Nation

O sickness of fallen angels, O temptation

O waif in my arms cradled, have ye forgot?

I, the visage of the Lord, whose shelter ye sought

I stand before you reborn, naked, subdued

Lucifer and Prometheus, through shop window viewed

A chained heathen, I cast my Glory and Truth

To thy feet now firm, but you turn away

You come to me in the Night and curse me in the day

You enslave the child who smears my roots and prays

You worship might and revere Death and Pain

Satan who yearns for time Allah has ordained.

For when the Light catches the wick

Igniting the elderly and the sick

Setting fire to the child newborn

Thy worn working brow will give up

I, who founded the land, will wither 

I, who saw Saladin bow in the stirrup

I, survivor of Turkey and Britain

An olive tree neither East nor West

My hearts aching as my children left

My bark rotting as their bombs fell

Oh I will melt into the flames irascent

I will ascend, Muhammad from the Rock

I will lock the doors to the heavens

They will assent only to the Keys

They will heed only my Friend, the Ghost and the Child

I will suckle the babes with my fruit and oil.