Maggie comes to Town.

He had flown across the mountain, because the water’s runnin’ low,

parched lands were increasing day by day.

He travelled to the city where the rivers were in flow,

found them pleasant and decided he might stay.

It was the Georges, where he landed, to have a look around,

found a lake with tall timber at its edge.

Sighing She-oaks spindled branches waving gently in the breeze

while along the low embankment, sign of sedge.

High branches with green foliage, somewhat similar to home,

this place might be nice to have a rest.

Flying high on pleasant updrafts, watching all within his view,

he could see feathered others in their nest.

No sign of predators or fire, left behind the Western Ranges,

where drought is causing animals to die.

Soft morning sun from dawn to dusk, green and grassy is the land,

cotton clouds framed by a pale and blue hued sky.

He found a backyard garden, just at the river edge,

with a birdbath and low foliage on the scene.

Tank water, right for drinking and for bathing,

then a space to spread his wings to stretch and preen.

But little sign of  roadkill, or other food of choice,

that was until a human came out through her door.

She spread red meat upon the grass, some soft, some very stringy,

more like dead ‘roo or Wallaby’s hardened paw,

which needed his strong beak, to rip and tear to shreds

as he once did when in his western range.

He then began to sense, this is not so bad at all,

even though it began as, very, very strange.

When once he had ‘settled in’, with competition thin,

he began his strange but friendly magpie ‘talk’.

So then each and every day, when his human would appear,

he’d fly to her feet to say good morning

with a gutteral magpie  -  ' grawk ‘.

©. Rimeriter 28/4/12.