The Cockatoo

A solitary, screeching, sulphur-crested

Cockatoo clings precariously

to our fourth floor balcony’s balustrade

and it (the bird rather than the balcony)

adjusts itself, like us, to rattling trains 

beneath us, running east to west

across sub-tropical suburbia, alike

and yet so completely unalike

the ordinary streets of growing up

(Scottish) in the northern hemisphere

where any sight of any cockatoo 

of any sort - sulphur-crested or not -

would be frowned upon, dismissed

or feature in the local weekly rag

beneath the tagline “Would you believe it?’

Most would not because we’re decent,

common folk not given over-much

to fancy tales, improbable occurrences or

April Fool’s Day jokes by folks who ought

to know much better than to free

the town eccentric's pampered pet.

But here it’s just another sulphur-crested

Cockatoo, foraging and screeching

homewards as dusk settles on the day.

Neither of us stops to look.  You read a book;

I surf the Internet in search of something

and the sulphur-crested cockatoo takes flight.

(The bird arrived around six.  It sounded as if it was inside the apartment.  I thought there might be a poem somewhere in it.  Not sure there is but I’ve been writing for an hour or so in search of one.)

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