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Showing posts from March, 2014

Kookaburras

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It's four days, now, since you've visited. The garden is a ghost town without you, the quiet too stark a contrast to your exuberant activity and noisiness. My ears are continually on high alert for signs of you. I miss your full-throated guffaws heralding the family's arrival into the tree outside my kitchen window, or the fence surrounding the fernery – all four of you sitting in a row like swallows on a wire. Regarding me with your 'Well, we're waiting' attitude. Oh, Noisy One, first out of the nest but last to learn independence, I miss you most of all – your continuous caw, caw, caw, calling for fast food. I miss stepping out the back door to greet you with freshly cut strips of steak – only the best for a growing family – and watching you take the meat up in your beaks, ‘killing’ it before tossing your heads back and swallowing with gusto, you, Noisy One, always managing to score the biggest meal. I miss looking, in turn, into four sets of int