Michelle Brock
Biding Time
The fledgling magpies are hungry again. Their appetites are insatiable, as is mine, for these summer days beneath generous trees where breezes drift
and birds stroll between the café tables.
Yesterday at the produce markets, unable to decide between plums, cherries, nectarines, and peaches, I bought them all. Now I choose that wattlebird singing its joy at a plate of crumbs, that child crouching to question a dandelion, that circle of women sharing their hearts around the table, that cypress sheltering the lives of all who stop beneath it.
If I were a tree where might I grow? Here perhaps, in this garden fed by European dreams and follies. Or would I grow on a shale ridge, setting roots in native soil? If I were a bird would I earn my living as a café magpie, stealing food when backs are turned? Or would I be a crimson rosella brightening the gum trees, or a wren darting from bush to bush, dipping and tipping its tail, or a kookaburra cackling at it all?
a garden seat
beneath the elms
an autumn leaf
rests on its journey
to the ground
About the Author
Michelle Brock is a poet and short-story writer. She lives on a bush block near Queanbeyan Australia and finds her inspiration along rivers and beaches and in the company of other writers. Her tanka and tanka prose appear in various journals and anthologies.