At the Barre

as if a visiting ballet-mistress

had rapped her cane

the tree ferns lift

their feathered skirts

arch and sway

then touch the forest floor

cabbage tree palms

rustle and shiver

throw wayang shadows

on the sandstone walls

from the undergrowth

comes a great commotion

the tips of bracken ferns

wave and bend

as a trio of wrens emerge

fluffed and plumped up

the lyre-bird

follows the wind

Gillian Telford, Pearl Beach