Night Flight
Tonight the air feels strange, not cold, in fact, not even cool
Unusually warm for Sydney in July, Australian Yule,
A perfect night for viewing stars, cloudless, clear and pure
Unspoilt by man’s pollution, no smoke haze to endure
And airport curfews now in place ensure a sky sublime
Pregnant silence coats the land like a Marcel Marceau mime.
Above the regal moon, so full, sits low in elevation,
Infuses mood, instils a sense of eerie expectation.
Peering from behind tall trees promoting shape and shadow
Furtive profiles on the land, lurking late night tableaux.
Such aura from the moonlight evokes weird scenes theatric
A world of two dimensions, a shadow-graph dramatic,
Immobile trees and buildings, flat silhouettes outlined
Robbed of girth and colour just in monochrome defined.
A breeding ground for creative minds, night under attack,
Lost souls and ghouls, a shaman, all shades of black on black,
Intensify the ambient mood as the nimbus rises higher
Flooding the earth with ghostly beams, nocturnal silver fire.
To all intents and purposes there is no night time breeze
Just a hint, a puff, a zephyr stirs high branches in the trees,
Quaintly moulds mixed mind shapes from hallucinogenic fronds
Fomenting fear and panic when a fertile brain responds
As one bold rustling mind shape, hanging high, takes flight
With powerful strokes of webbed skin into the dark of night
Its form quite imperceptible until its moon traverse
Revives foyer poster memories, a Transylvanian curse,
A horror movie cliché now transposed to local skies
Stark and black and potent uttering ultrasonic cries,
That pulse like radar signals across this heavenly stage
Directional technology born of a primitive age.
With strident shrieks this leader bat now signals its cohorts
In manner urgent drawing a shrill chorus of retorts
From shadowy shapes on branches, in querulous debates
Of fever pitch crescendo, which then suddenly abates,
Arrested on command as flapping leather flays the air
Their leader has directed an alternate night time lair
That generates a chilling, but unusual, local sight
A flurry of flying foxes taking off in mass night flight.
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