The Thief of Parramatta
The kookaburra is laughing in the tree this morning
and I’m deciding to view him as the good-natured comic
that appears in the song I learned as a kid
—!!—
rather than the annoying jackass that I find
him to be when I’m in an evil mood.
I summon a smile, knowing it can be a kind of reflective
behaviour that makes you feel the way a smiling person feels.
I gather all the broken pieces of hope
that I’ve thrown down recently
and arrange them carefully,
removing all the scraps of despair
that cling like dirt encrusting ancient pottery shards
unearthed as a treasure of recollection
of what once was, a grandeur
that we can celebrate and hope to attain
once again, from its lessons.
I made the coffee especially hot this morning,
at the time because this morning is coolish,
but now so this meditative moment
of acquired contentment might last
just long enough to flavour the day
with its warm, comfortable sweetness.
I still have a touch of a headache from
poor sleep that yielded no recollected dreams,
and the world is still a tough place right now,
but I’m the thief of Parramatta,
stealing fragments of dreams from dark places
and bringing them back to give you, us,
a few fleeting moments of contentment.
