Falco Berigora

(on the Strzelecki Peaks)

It was no gale
but plumb amidst
the roaring forties
and at seven
hundred metres
the wind bit chill
through summer cottons.

To lunch and talk
we lay on naked
granite, sheltered
by melaleucas
tough and fully
ankle high,
that forced their roots
through meagre rock-
crumble and leaf-rot
in narrow cracks —
when from the east
a bird swooped up,
brown falcon poised,
wings wind-fluttered
scarce two metres
above the peak.

A moment she hung
against the wind,
then turned and in
her turning drew
her wings closer
and stooped down
the northern drop.

We ran scarce twenty
paces to
the edge and watched
that black streak
flatten her fight,
sweep out above
the plain beside the sea.