After the gold rush

A frozen sea of clouds

melts before sunrise

revealing

last night’s fading

crescent moon;

a solitary crow’s drawn-out caw

disrupts the click clack

honeyeaters;

bees track from dahlia

to dahlia blissfully unaware

the human world is

shutting down

cog by cog;

and the shiny green acorn

pushes on regardless.

I wrote this poem in March 2020 as we began to encounter the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature has proven to be a resilient antidote to the ‘gold rush’ of media frenzy, panic-buying and political points-scoring that the last two years have brought about.