Sounds from the Tree House
As night falls
the shadow bats sweep
in and fill the sky
with hungry shrieks
and sounds of flapping wings.
A celebration in the trees,
all night conversation
or screeching argument,
no waver from their noisy game.
I lie in bed,
high among the trees,
exposed
I hear their clumsy flight,
their voices so near.
Did I close the door?
Will I wake,
covered in velvety wings?
The night is long,
but daybreak curfew
brings a moment’s quiet,
a silent metamorphosis
then screech turns to chorus
and webbed cape
becomes feathered wing
On Visiting My Childhood Home
above the low rock wall
the aloe vera
sends green spears
in all directions,
the bird’s nest
spreads its wide leaves
to the sky.
In the raised bed
skeletons of parsley stand,
dried seedpods,
like outspread hands
holding tiny seeds
I’ll go and run
my hand over them,
before I go,
and fine seeds
will scatter
in the earth
below
The Sea
My mother says
I screamed at night,
till on a ship
I found sound sleep
I feel it still,
this watery past,
the push and pull of tides,
the to and fro of passing days.
I walk towards the water’s swell
step by step,
feeling its movement
lapping, lapping against skin
deeper,
feet free and floating,
I’m carried by the sea,
its arms full round me,
and here our steady pulses meet.
Katherine Giles
I am a student of creative writing at Macquarie Uni. I have always been the keeper of a diary and a dabbler in poetry. I am happiest curled up with a book or floating in the ocean. Kate Giles