Chasing the Light

 

(after discovering Forgotten Songs in Angel Place) 

Trying to hurry along an hour , I escape
the rumbling, brash roars of George Street
on a Thursday morning.
seduced
               by
                  a
                     diagonal
                                     ray
of uninterrupted sunlight, floating its light
down an alleyway like slowly sifted
flour, I chase its rays through a series
of angular, lonely slate-coated corridors
where corporate smokers scatter in crevices.

It doesn’t take much longer to get to more light-
drenched, surrounds – sounds of White –
eared Honeyeaters, throated Treecreepers, browed
Scrubwrens and naped Honeyeaters

Slowly, a Golden Whistler sings, blurring
into a sunset of Scarlet Honeyeaters
and Red-browed Finches

Driven out, not forgotten, they move in
moving and singing with their ghostly
presence, floating above in empty
bird cages, haunting the streets
they once reigned in

Christine Ratnasingham

Author: Christine Ratnasingham

Christine Ratnasingham is a Sydney based writer and poet, who was born in Sri Lanka and grew up in England and Australia. She has had her poetry published in conversations, Extempore, Hypallage, Mascara Literary Review and the collection, Contemporary Asian Australian Poets in 2013. She was awarded the HB Higgins Scholarship for Poetry from the University of Melbourne.