She was nine years old,
and would watch the bats fly low
over her hiding place
their elongated cut-outs
dotting the orange dusk
with cartilage and bone.
The scary bird.
A frame made of rubber over wire
she liked the way
they called one another
from their slumber
the calm and gentle shrieking,
the space between her eyes.
Their cries,
became the end of another day
the death of another sun
and she imagined what she must
look like there, pressed as a flower
petals curling at the edges
eyes peering out into the garden path, at passing strangers.
A feral cat.
She had a secret that was hers
and hers alone
A knotted mess of plants and wood
A thousand figure eights of foreign weeds
strangling the natives
knit so tightly,
only beetles found their way
She found a way too
through the gnarled lantana
tiny arms and legs
delicate enough to slip through their thorns.
She crouched
down through the spiky gauntlet,
rubbing her belly on the damp.
A tiny carpet snake.
The branches snatched
their pointy claws, tearing through
the clumps of curls
her little eyes were cunning,
enough to avoid the teeth of Pandanus
its serrated edge, hungry to cut her
like soft bread
Cobwebs tangled in her lashes
was the middle of her nest
An empty crop circle
a hiding place,
just right for one
she breathed in silence.
A feathered mouse.
The withered grass was pressed
into the earth
as if they knew she were coming
and the long curled branch unfurled before her
A natural stranglehold
from unrelenting weeds
It would be her perch for many years
until the sap hardened
and her legs lengthened
and she would lay in it's splinters
crumble into the hole she dug with her toes
and dirty the hem of her dress
(But she didn't know that, yet)
The worker drone.
She set to work at once
smoothing the dirt with the bottom of her shoe
Inside, her bed went unmade.
Here, amongst the leaves
A long-stemmed silver rose
sunbeams pooling in the rim
A metal goblet, carvings against the lip
From the time of Camelot
Raised to the mouths of Kings
Torn from the hands of Knights
Tossed into the treasure of pirates
long-lost and forgotten
she knew it was meant to be hers
the diamond chalice, hidden in the brush.
The phoenix from the ashes.
Fallen, from it's dusty throne
She decided that she
and she alone,
would be it's secret-keeper
and whispered her eternal allegiance
in the blood of bark
by the shadow of a gumtree
she never told a soul.
Until now.
