Poem: The Gang Were All There

The Gang Were All There

The gang-gang hang across the wire

rampant head-feathers

cardinal hints to their plumage of grey

falling forward in the manner of Leunig’s Curly

Just twenty million years since they shared

ancestors with the other cockatoos – those

sulphur-crested, plump as chooks

littering the grassy verge

The gang hang unruffled by the building

site of blue Portaloo and temp-fencing

hi-vis tradies rapping / birds screeching

an aria in wood and rusted hinges

They’ve made themselves scarce

since then – no sign

the gang’s absence a phantom presence

harder and harder to walk on by

In a land of smoke and flame, the encounter

seems more likely a mirage of desire

a last grab as the future

slips into endangered territory

Maybe I dreamed all ten individually

males with flushed cheeks and plumed helmets

grey-crested females with their buffy chests

watercolour-washed in a blush of hues.

Jane Downing lives in Sydney. Her poetry has appeared in Australia and overseas in various publications, including Meanjin, Rabbit, Cordite, Canberra Times, Not Very Quiet, Social Alternatives, Catchment, Otoliths, Live Encounters, e.ratio, Last Stanza, and Best Australian Poems. In 2025 she won the NSW Poetry Prize. Her collection, When Figs Fly, was published by Close-Up Books in 2019. Jane has a website, at janedowning.wordpress.com.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons / JJ Harrison