by EARL LIVINGS
Glen Park State Forest, Mid-Autumn, 2024
No drop of blood on that tip
thick enough for a nib,
no damage to its glossy vanes,
the leading edge stiletto-thin,
the trailing edge double-curved,
top half a turbine blade,
bottom half a fan —
a gift caught in a clump of grass
unruffled as if it had landed
moments before at the end
of a path through a forest
of slanting sunlight, dead thistles,
brown ferns nodding with green,
burnt-out gum trees, one
with an apron of white bark,
a flourish of wrens freewheeling
above the path or weaving through
gorse and blackberry, chittering,
a kookaburra poised on a branch
after a flurry swoop into scrub
and its return without prey,
two magpies foraging amongst
leaf litter and strips of bark,
and the unknown bird making do
without this long feather, black
in a faint shimmer of blue,
its cry of wounding and loss
long faded with the wind.