Poetry

Tawny Frogmouth

Nana Ollerenshaw

 It mottles in with paperbarks

obscures the line between

what’s animate and not.

Brow and beak point up

silent as a pharaoh.

It dozes through the hum,

carves a block of stillness in the day,

mimics light and shade

not quite an owl

or bird of prey,

half-frog, half-fish, half fowl

the wideness of its mouth obscene.

But at night this predator,

this strange unearthly fellow

will shed unneeded camouflage

and stab the dark with yellow.