Art by Alex Mcleay
The peregrine falcon lives on every continent in the world. The word ‘peregrine’ translates to ‘wanderer’, as the falcon migrates over land and sea each year, crossing paths with other falcons, before returning home – which could be anywhere in the world.
The Sinister Screen
Twitching
Blinking screens
Graphs
Grace news bulletins
Like Gospel
Cabinet chaos
Preaches calm
But retreats into walls
Of a capsizing Canberra
And
Cold tiles tell tales of
Supermarket conundrums
Reassurances swim in
Black crevasses
Of canned food aisles
Pushing trolleys with fists
Mayhem scribbled into shopping lists
We crave
Apocalyptic air
The shoves and shuffles
The hustle
The bustle.
The only noise
In the quietness of quarantine.
The falcon flies between
Ravaged rainbows
Watches us spill out
Like octopus ink
Shameless self-poison
She lands
Cries
Calls for a caress of her wounded
Wings.
Rewind.
We waited for the play-next button
But didn’t realise
This was the series finale
Cliffhanger
Ending
Everybody waiting
Everybody watching.
There is a quietness in quarantine
A slowness
I cannot quite grasp.
No morning rush
With makeup brush
Just feet fiddling with carpet fluff
Forcing ourselves to wake up
Face the day
Of TV on
TV off
Fridge
And the funny feeling of
Quietness
Without
Gedo bellowing through the front door
Shouting in Arabic
Cigar smoke kisses his chin
Prickly beard
The little ones giggle and wriggle
As he pulls them in.
Carrying boxes of mango and peach
He guards our kitchen
Like Pharoah.
The quietness in quarantine
I know, is hard for him.
The falcon dips over train rides
Where school girl cliques
And small smiles to brown haired boys
And businessmen in boujee black button ups
And rows of cross-legged
Coffee-breathed
Mornings
Live only in the echo of empty carriages.
The falcon flies over
Hozier nights
Where mothers divide
Pots of popcorn
And Sunday barbeques battle on
Without grandma’s butterscotch pudding.
Our bodies are unfit
For the quietness in quarantine.
They crave the times
When knowing
Was no novelty.
Are we selfish?
Is this how we got here?
It’s Quaint and It’s Quiet
Who knew
A coffee needed wind?
Needed the blue-eyed barista with a deer tattoo
As the backdrop?
There is a quietness in quarantine
That riddles my bedroom walls.
I notice the mirror’s wooden frame
Parallel grains
A Peruvian prize
I muse
At how long I have missed this
And why?
And why
I didn’t know Mama was greying
Until sunlight caught the silver strands
Sipping cinnamon tea
Her Aphrodite hair
Teases the azaleas
At our feet
In the quietness of quarantine
Nature unfurls
Like grandmother willow
Waiting for her turn to speak
After we
Wasps and termites
Tantalised her roots
Tested her.
But with one microscopic menace
She has silenced us.
Falcons circle her
Like a flower crown.
Our eyes bow
Sanctify her sanctity
In the quietness.
But I wonder
Will we need
Reprogramming?
Will quick breaths in crowded restaurants
Haunt us?
Will we flinch before turning door knobs?
Will I love you’s dwell in aluminium phone lines?
Will –
The morning chirps.
Falcons flitter on our fences
Smell of Italian balconies
Sing Turkish songs
And fly low
In the Australian air
‘Look out your window,’
They sing
‘So long as I fly,
You can never be alone.’