Cockatoos by Hilary Kleinig
Whilst traveling around Australia recently I was often struck by the immense numbers and cacophonous, relentless sounds of cockatoos – swarming, darting, perching, gorging – waking me up at the crack of dawn or squawking the sun to bed at dusk. Such a uniquely Australian sight and sound!
In writing Cockatoos I was inspired by this images in this poem by Syd Harrex to create structures and sounds in the music that echoed the sentiments within. Such as ‘flock in blade formation’, ‘scissor sun lagoons’, ‘scattered like mange in the fur of grass’, ‘shattered by a sea of brilliant flaws’, ‘eat with and ecstasy’, and ‘the moral writes the score’. I also wanted to celebrate their raucous jubilation and their ancient and ongoing presence in Australia.
Hilary Kleinig, 2016
Cockatoos in the Pine Plantation
For C.D. Narasimhaiah
The flock in blade formation, black—or white
sulphur crested—scissor sun lagoons
between the turf-dense shades of conifers,
and there’s pine-fruit panic when this occurs,
when russet pips and rinds of chewed-out cones
lie scattered like mange in the fur of grass
as if some barrier-reef architecture
were shattered by a sea of brilliant flaws.E
ach year they gorge the jubes of Spring, so I
feast at their table in their tilted sky.
They eat with an ecstasy I admire,
as if it’s all language their beaks ingest.
They are the grit and dust of story before
the fable retreats, the moral writes the score.
From Dedications by Syd Harrex