bush stone curlew

bush stone curlew

burhinus grallarius

when the moon gleams silver white

I hear the bush stone curlew write

its piercing notes upon the night

bird as motionless as stone

when peril strikes your bushy home

you fade into the bark and loam

Ngamirliri, spread your tail

with fan-like wings through soils of shale

dance the story you bewail

wer-looo wer-looo ki-liri-coo

in cascades of nocturnal blue

let dreaming spirits follow you

for they can read that yellow eye

like topaz as your plaintive cry

shatters the silence of the sky

as you sign your autograph

on woodland habitat held fast

don't let this be its epitaph

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Recorded for the Bimblebox Art Project 2014