The magpie's canvas

Before the curtains are drawn

and light can enter the mind -

the day fresh and uneaten;

before the lover’s hand

can alight upon the shoulder’s blade

and stir sleep into action,

the feathered artist

warbles aural paint across the world.

Ears fill with the gravity

of a planet returned, a promise fulfilled.

The eucalypt are greened and greyed,

the sun given its yellow haze;

the sky, with each trill and cadence,

returned from night into blue.

Head upon pillowed dreams,

I hear the artist’s work;

know the world

is made whole in the dawn.