Eastern Bristlebird

Dasyornis brachypterus

Fire cleanses more than memory; a bad
Season will clear out tussock grass without
A backward glance. The charred ‘calling logs’
Where males wrought sound waves into fine
Invisible jewellery to hang their desire from
A females’ soft ear, will stain the forest black
Like Hiroshima buildings, dormant in their
Centuries’ long grief. In the fire’s post-coital
Bliss these things will happen; a new city of
Denseness will grow swamping the old lives
Of refugees, shaken to their core by the blazon
Plan. & their bristles will melt like flagpoles
At ground zero, their plucky hearts reduced to
Slag, some off-cut in the mind’s hot furnace.