I breakfast with the magpies

I wrote this poem for Debbie Paton's first solo art exhibition, which featured a number of magpie studies. The School of Music Poets teamed up with the Cafe Poets at Joey's Watson and wrote half a dozen poems on magpies for Debbie.  They are now being published in an illustrated pamphlet thanks to Hal Judge, ACT coordinator of Australian Poetry.

I breakfast with the magpies
whenever I am able
sunlight spreads a cloth
on my little table

a solitary musician
smart in dinner suit
swift-swoops to my veranda
warbling like a flute

one snack is not enough
but gobbled just in time -
between some grateful yodels -
before a whirr and whine

of eager wind through feathers
as others come to land -
expectantly aware
that I'm at their command

heads up - chests out - they're busking -
pouring rhapsodies
in trickling notes of ivory
from throats of ebony -

no careless silver needed
thrown in a violin case -
they take tips from the air -
or hand - or any place -

now you have caught those magpies
with paints and brush of sable -
the sunlight and the shadows
that hop upon my table


© Hazel Hall
27 July 2012