Blue Birds
By Caroline Davies
Inspiration piece

You used to wait for them to return,
‘Blue birds’ you called them,
before you could say ‘Swallow’
‘Blue Birds Back’ was your triumphal cry.
They’d flown such a long way.
Each year they’d nest under the eaves
of the old barn; raise a family.

When the army sent you back to me injured,
I moved your bed so you could watch from the window.
How you huddled under the red woollen blanket,
unable to get warm but impatient at my attentions.

All you wanted was to sleep and recover
so you could get back to your men.
I’d hear you calling out to them at night,
telling them to take cover.
In the morning I’d change sheets
soaked with nightmares.

Nonetheless the army decided
you were ‘fit for active service’.
The following spring it was the same boy
who brought the Post Office Telegraph
telling me you’d died of wounds.

The swallows still come every year
the offspring of the ones you knew.

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Photograph
by Jane Souza Hulstrunk
Icy Morning
Inspiration Piece

Caroline M. Davies
“Ice prints”
Response

Ice prints

Each winter my brother and I would wait
for the tell-tale signs.
Jack and Jill Frost’s pitter-patter of prints
on the inside of the window.
It meant the lake would be frozen,
school closed for the day.
We never had skates but would pretend
to glide and swoop.

My children wonder why
I turn the heating down at nights.
They grumble about the cold
so will never know the excitement
of waking to frost covered panes.

Traci Robison
Sienna Boy

Inspiration piece

Boy Playing

By Caroline Davies

Response

Boy playing

Go out and play, my parents were forever saying.

You need more fresh air. You have to be healthy.

My father urged me to take more exercise

so I’d grow up to be a man.

My mother used to fuss over me.

They couldn’t understand how I preferred to stay indoors

playing music, singing, reading.

Some parents would love a studious son.

I’d try to please them by going outside.

The only other children were the street urchins.

Playing with them was forbidden.

I might catch something.

They were often hungry.

Their ribs made my chest look strong.

It was the same with the feral cats.

They were not to be encouraged.

But I did when no one was looking.

Left titbits in the chinks of the brick walls.

Who knows where I got this disease from?

From the street kids, the cats, the city’s drains, the bad air

rising up from the lagoon.

From the food from the cook who was sacked

on suspicion of having poisoned me.

It made my mother cry as I got weaker,

too feeble to go outside.

How I wish I could walk in the sunshine.

Everyone talks in whispers but I hear them

and know there’s nothing to be done.

My mother holds my hands and it’s as if I am

back in the garden and I feel warm.

by Caroline Davies

Response

She walks the red earth,

her bare feet connect to the land.

She throws a whip of stars

across the dark sky,

draws lines to join the pin pricks of light.

The gods gathered in the heavens.

Some of them went out long ago

but she summons their stories.

She stands by the tree of knowledge

bark branched against the winter sky.

She remembers the spring wind

brings warm wet rain

to make the tree bloom again.

She sings of the taste of apples,

flushed red with ripeness.

A ripple of snake around the tree roots.

Too late to notice the red, yellow, black

warning triangles.

The fruit is sweet.