© Poetry, photographs and painting Copyright To Anne Frandi-Coory. All Rights Reserved 3 June 2019
Bird Life In The You Yangs *Painting acrylic on canvas*
***(This painting has been sold)
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You Yangs…
Yellow, blue, eucalypts
ancient river red gums,
centuries in the making; naked branches,
petrified arms, gnarled and grey
beckoning, pleading, monster-like
awaiting more fire to sprout new life
darkened cavities like gaping mouths,
homes for many a creature.
***
Seems a graveyard for once-thriving
river red gums, companion granite rock
cracked and sentry-like, guarding;
fossilized years of earthly rumblings
groaning low Wadawurrung mountains
weathered skeletons hovering, creaking
trunks given up on survival?
Crashed to earth, limbs flailing
***
so dry, roots no longer gripping
many moons of rainless clouds
tortured, pitiful, writhing gums; so
much crumbling charcoal clinging;
kindling amassing for a future
conflagration that one day must come
alas what wildlife lurks beneath?
Koala cling high amongst the thinning gums.
***
Myriad birds thrive in this strange landscape
in harmony and yet, noisy squabbling,
from long shared and distant pasts;
Magpies’ melodious carolling,
New Holland honey eaters chattering
colourful feathers fleetingly observed
camouflaged in the skyward flowering gums,
laughing Kookaburra and croaking Wattlebird.
***
Silence unobserved atop granite peaks in the midst of a sweeping lava plain.
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Photos taken in the You Yangs by Anne Frandi-Coory: 
anne frandi-coory 