Neil Creighton

I wake

to the flickering screen’s images
of desperation and remorse,
the bleak recounting of misdeeds,
lies, greed, corruption,
scenes of anger, partisan politics, accusation,
analysis, implication, expectation, speculation,

but in the blue-sky day outside
the gum trees are in nectar-filled
explosion of blossom
and the air is filled with flocks
of beautiful rainbow lorikeets
descending to joyously feast
with their excited chatter
and even the grey friar birds,
dipping their dark heads
to fill their curved beaks,
sing their strange chokk-chokk-four-o-clock
in unrestrained, joyous, raucous celebration.

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Neil Creighton is ever the optimist.

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