Wake up call

[Maureen K Clifford]

WAKE UP CALL






The midnight blue starts to fade and red comes creeping in.

A starlit night slowly relinquishes its hold to the icy dawn.
The fingernail of moon throws no light – it hangs silent and impotent
surrounded by silvery sycophants in the seconds before sunrise.
The log fire, banked for the night, now comes to life.

The Kookaburras are laughing at the sun that creeps slowly and cautiously above the hills.

Coals burn bright, as breezy cold fingers of air infiltrate the depths
encouraging the embers to burst into brilliant flame once more.
The sharp smell of ironbark wood smoke lingers. The snap and crackle of pine
logs and pine cones and the hiss of leaking sap, joins the morning chorus.

The signs of spring are all around – a Joey peeping from his Mums pouch
as she watches cautiously from the deep shadows beneath the Pines.
The hilly slopes dotted with tiny lambs and anxious ewes, who bleat noisily
at their offspring – who disregard them, seemingly suffering from selective deafness.

The sweet scent of Wattle can be smelt and almost tasted on the tongue
as the scrubby bushes erupt in a scramble of frothy egg yolk yellow blooms,
and the bumble bees bumble backwards and forwards. Leg sacs full to bursting
with the sweet nectar they have gathered. Natures golden honey harvest.

The Kookaburras are laughing at slug –a- beds and sleepy heads.

Mugs of hot chocolate steam in the coals – and a leather shod foot
pokes at the mound of blankets on the ground. No response is noted.
But a more insistent wet nose and pink tongue thrust under the blankets
draws forth a giggle that outdoes the Kookaburras as a tousled carrot top emerges.

Young Blue deserts his swag as Red comes creeping in.

Maureen Clifford © 03/11