WORDS BY HERBERT KEUNEMAN - EXCERPTS FROM WITH THE DAWN

With the dawn
the birds
awake
and take off
fluttering
gracefully
away
from lakes
and jungle pools ...........
they mount screeching
into the morning sky.


Some watch the fantasies of aerial ballet, others on curled wing labour heavily overhead reaching for far heights in which to soar.


Towards secluded tanks buffaloes press and thunder to plunge and swim.


The Eagle fierce and questing lives always on watch.


Yet even parents
however alert,
watchful
or devoted
nor any small adult
can always avoid
the swoop
the lightning strike
of this proud killer.


Challenge is issue
and answered
while the meeker members stare
or stampede to a safer distance
until the loser
is ousted.


But beyond the bruit of battle normal occupations and pre-occupations continue.


As the sun falls, its light shatters into a million fragments bright as a peacock's tail, gradually fading into a silver spear, and the last bird flies home.