Rummaging through inner city trash bins

Teasing melody from orchestral dins

Of sorrow and of loneliness he sings,

Of poverty, of his only true sin

His plumage ruffled and the vivid crest,

Replaced by a dirty, blue, mangled vest

Where once was brook, tree stump and rivulet,

Now trolley and park bench, this songbird’s nest

From King through Church, Wilson and Enmore Road,

Streets to which, forcibly, he is betrothed.

But for his quick, tremulous verbal goad

There is no other sweeter-sounding ode

Some with dull ears might think it no finer

Than the lazy drone of Indian miners,

Even magpie calls receive judgments kinder

When the judge is wearing horses’ blinders

Yet he does not curse foul, nor spit, nor shout,

Neither frothing wildly around the mouth,

This wounded lyrebird from the great new South,

Uncomplaining, as he shoulders each clout