Home is a wild place

My home is also home to wild things,

a menagerie of beasties, who owe me nothing.

Everybody thinks I live alone, but I don’t.

My friend Fred the carpet python threads his way

through the lattice of the patio every morning.

Two meters of iridescence, gleaming rainbow in the sun.

Kookaburras gargle, gurgle from the bowels of my chimney stack.

A devoted pair have chosen it for their nest

so no fire to warm me this winter but that’s okay.

Chartreuse caterpillars wait for the night

I forget to cover over the Italian parsley

while flocculent possums poise to plunder

the cherry tomatoes, strawberries, even rose buds.

Yellow-eyed crows drawl laconically from the green gutter

as they swoop on in for a quick drink.

I feed them so they lower their heads

to eye me through the window as if to say

“How’s it going?” “Any scraps today lady?”

Blue and yellow rosellas zip in for their bath

then shimmy and shake and fluff their feathers

sitting in a peripatetic row on the ragged chicken wire fence.

Vermilion-bellied green tree frogs stick to the window,

their webbed feet splayed as they consider me

with amber eyes and cocked heads before leaping off.

Less of them now since the vacant block next door lies

levelled and cleared ahead of construction.

And of course spiders diligently re-spinning their gossamer

grottos, in readiness for the night’s rich pickings.

I love it when the selfsame webs become accidental snares

for a new day’s dawn dew, hanging like expectant diamonds,

reflecting the glories of the sunrise.

But the best and rarest roommate is a sleepy fellow

who sometimes makes his way down from a ghost gum

to scoop water up from the pipe near the “vegie patch”

blinking in the late afternoon sun, ears flicking and

bemused expression when he sees me admiring

his familiar and solid little frame swathed as it is in silvery fuzz.

Nightfall brings the fruit bats, blotting out the full moon

as they swoosh past looking for a feast of papaya, mango.

Clambering through the branches with their ungainly,

hooked wings and furry middles, squeaking and

shrieking as they compete for the best spots.

Their elongated snouts and piercing, intelligent eyes

confirming why many call them “flying foxes”.

The “tsk, tsk, tsk” of a sweet, little gecko

reminds me it’s time for bed. He does his rounds

along the cornices, cornering moths and

devouring them with sticky, bell-shaped tongue.