The Nesting Tree.

The Nesting Tree.

Come, friends, listeners, gather 'round me,

Together we shall hear of the story I plead,

Turn life’s pages with its entrancing scenes,

Witness the unfolding of one’s living deeds,

And tell you I shall, the story of “The Nesting Tree”.

*

At the back of the old settler’s hut, there you will see,

An old, so very old, gnarled branched mallee tree.

It’s central trunk long dead, smoothed and grey,

Time’s caress removed rough bark and did sand,

All sharp edges from that tall, trunk so grand.

*

There is a hollow up a dozen feet from the bole,

Just to the left of a greying spar, bone sculp’d,

That give nesting shelter every year to galahs.

Their red and grey colours matched as a pair,

Returning season on season to raise chicks there.

*

Now, every summer of the last twenty five,

The same pair made that nesting tree their hide,

Come back every year, for they mate for life,

There they’d patiently sit..lay eggs, raise a brood.

There they’d return each year to reclaim their abode.

*

Galahs were there when we first bought the place,

There when my parents built the first house,

They were there long after I was engaged,

They were there when I left in a marriage done,

There when I returned years later with my son.

*

For the marriage failed, my husband a beast,

When in drunken rage I would hide from his fists,

All too often he would strike out in raging hate,

But came the time when I no more would suffer,

Returning to my home..to my father and mother.

*

And I marked similar with those galahs I would see,

They too returned to reclaim their nest-tree,

That in the end I too did return to familiar territory,

Returned to that home where I could rest, be free,

Returned to safety in mine own “Nesting Tree”.

*

Is it our fate in a struggle to succeed,

That sometimes the odds fall so great against need,

So much hurt that leaves one’s heart to bleed,

That with the loss complete of all and sundry,

No choice but return to one’s own Nesting Tree?

*

And it was that year when loss I first redressed,

When I became more inured to life’s cruelness,

That I found a chick fallen from the galah’s nest,

Whether it be cat attack or just plain excess,

I never knew, but I held that chick in gentle caress.

*

I held that bird without hope, tender fledgling,

And I was of two minds as to what to do,

Leave it down and let nature deal the fatal blow?

Yet in its small, frightened eye, I could myself espy,

And who was I to refuse it balm, never had it done me harm.

*

Why not, with helping touch relieve its hurt,

With tender love & care, will it not sing its dirge?

“It will not fly free” you could say..but then, does a tree run away?

Does oyster glued to rock not wait in patience for its food?

So this bird too, some moments I’ll share, a little of life’s splendid air.

*

For its helplessness struck close to my heart,

Was I not also hurt in helpless compact?

And I thought it too I could grant a fresh start,

So I raised it up to a sprightly young bird,

And its company and song the comfort I did need.

*

Came the drought of those four long years,

The galahs never returned to claim their nest,

Very few remained in the paddocks and trees,

And I can only presume they left for fear,

Of dying in a land left barren and drear.

*

But my bird’s company and talk stayed with me long,

Long after my mother and father “passed on”,

Long after I had said cheerio to my son,

As he left to find work, another place, another town,

I could not in all fairness hold him down.

*

That left me alone on the farming property,

Alone with that galah as my only company,

For how many old folk had now passed away,

But it was alright, for I had my familiar ways,

My garden and church and community days.

*

But all this world of mine came crashing down,

Just when I thought the future I owned,

When my son, the father’s blood, took to drinking,

And in a state of drunken wild, a car-crash took my only child,

And left me with only my broken dreams to hold.

*

And it was on one day several years gone past,

Orchard and gardening the balm of my heart,

When the numbness of love lost had since passed,

Habit and routine had done its hard work,

Only leaving moments of sadness to burn its mark.

*

I watched my pet galah at the casement window sit,

Looking to the outside world in wistful sight,

And I couldn’t help but feel the moment had come,

Like my own search for a land of peaceful times,

To let her feel the strength of wind on her wings.

*

It was in the steadfast look of that galah I could see,

That it was looking, staring constant out toward a tree,

Its trunk bare, with a hollow, behind the old settler’s hut,

And following its gaze I could clearly conceive,

Its hungering sight falling onto The Nesting Tree.

*

It was many years that I kept as pet that galah,

Fed it, held it, laughed at its stumbling larks,

Cursed it for when it tore into packets of seeds,

And mocked it when it danced for its tea.

Its hobbling-bobbling a curious sight to see.

*

But on that one day it did dawn on me,

That I was now obliged to set it free,

For I owed it to myself to also believe in me,

So I kissed it’s crown and stroked it’s wings,

And opened the window and let it feel the wind.

*

There awhile sat the galah in steady repose,

As if deciding whether it worth the risk to soar,

Then turned to me and bobbed it’s crest..it knows,

Took a couple of times spreading wide its wings,

And flew away out to the sun in tumbling turns.

*

Two years passed and I thought I’d never see,

Again that galah that I came to set free,

Then one fine summer day near sunset I did glean,

Silhouetted against the brazen afternoon shine,

A shape of galahs outside my window screen.

*

And sure, there, as I stand so near to thee, my galah with a mate had come back to me!

We called out to each other with our own familiar chitter-chatter in repartee,

She pranced to me her mate by a nodding of her crest raised in laughing scree,

Bobbing and bowing in welcoming greet to me…..I reciprocated with exaggerated bow..”thankee”..

*

They then took to their wings, in resounding scream,

And I rushed to the window where I could discern,

They did fly true, fly free..returning once more,

As was done there first with her parent’s before,

To stake claim for their new home..near to my home..in The Nesting Tree.