Equilibrium valley

Equilibrium valley     

High stepping the veranda,

sapphire breast ablaze,  

crowned head quizzical;

pauses.

Iridescent bronze-green streamers,

his plumose train.   

Around, burnt mist sags

over Karri forest, cloaks the valley.

“Yesterday it jumped the Donnelly River”

warned the communiqué.

Back-burning, containment lines;

still bushfire brews, lurks in roots,

awaiting sun, wind, a spark, to

riserushlash earth’s face

again.

And another pyre:

damned specialist exams. 

Concentrate, boy!  Page 136, human herpesviruses. 

Ah, the Three Witches flare,

“fair is foul and foul is fair”. 

Silly Simplex:  dancing dendrites across corneas.

Cytomegalo-maniac:  bullying retinas of the weak.

 Zoster the Accoster:  chamber splashing uveitis.

Vesicles torched, membranes scorched,  

Witches screech … and retreat,

hush in root ganglia,

pray Libra tips immunity

again.

Whoosh!

Whirrrrrr….his train flares,

a quivering sail of nazar^* amulets,

electro-blue eyespots

on a spatula-tipped fan.

A chestnut bride, downy,

edges onto the veranda, preening.

He tacks to track her, sail swivelling

like a satellite dish.

As peafowl in parity court,

nazar and witch’s eye retort,

earth:fire life:pyre consort,

advance dance retreat,

pause;

so we, caught, hang

                                    taut in the balance.

*Footnotes:

nazar:  an amulet that is meant to protect against the ‘evil eye’, most common in Turkey, made from blue coloured glass in the form of droplet shapes, and sometimes referred to as the ‘blue eye’.