Poem
Peter Skrzynecki
Flying Foxes
Flying Foxes
Flying Foxes
With the hot summer rains they cameout of the forest, crying like lost souls
against a December moon that offered
no respite or refuge from the secrets
they carried to unburden themselves from
in the darkness of river gorges—
or clung, to mango and pawpaw,
while stars pierced their tongues
and breezes mercilessly whipped them on
from tree to tree, valley to valley,
as midnight faded slowly into a Hades
of sunlight and the flying foxes
were gone from yet another night,
here, in the season of jagged hail
that stoned down upon flame-tree and poincianas
while people talked of petals flowing like blood
past doorsteps and along the road.
When sheet lightning tore the sky
the same people prayed, closed windows,
turned off lights and waited
tensely until the fury of winds passed
deeper into the mountains—then prepared
meals as if a holocaust was at hand;
though, at evening, children were allowed outside
to imitate the screams of flying foxes—out to where
every tree stood like a Tower of Famine
that would always reach.
© 1972, Peter Skyzynecki
From: Headwaters
Publisher: Lyrebird Writers, Sydney
From: Headwaters
Publisher: Lyrebird Writers, Sydney
Poems
Poems of Peter Skrzynecki
Close
Flying Foxes
With the hot summer rains they cameout of the forest, crying like lost souls
against a December moon that offered
no respite or refuge from the secrets
they carried to unburden themselves from
in the darkness of river gorges—
or clung, to mango and pawpaw,
while stars pierced their tongues
and breezes mercilessly whipped them on
from tree to tree, valley to valley,
as midnight faded slowly into a Hades
of sunlight and the flying foxes
were gone from yet another night,
here, in the season of jagged hail
that stoned down upon flame-tree and poincianas
while people talked of petals flowing like blood
past doorsteps and along the road.
When sheet lightning tore the sky
the same people prayed, closed windows,
turned off lights and waited
tensely until the fury of winds passed
deeper into the mountains—then prepared
meals as if a holocaust was at hand;
though, at evening, children were allowed outside
to imitate the screams of flying foxes—out to where
every tree stood like a Tower of Famine
that would always reach.
From: Headwaters
Flying Foxes
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