© 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: