Noisy

As I look at my tiny oasis of jade - my backyard garden, I can see a stream of visitors that come and go with the flowing seasons. This time, I wanted to write about the noisy miner, a small native bird belonging to the honeyeater family, more reminiscent of the myna or starlings that are so common back home. The miner, justifying its name, becomes pretty noisy and territorial in nesting season, attacking every visitor.

 With this theme, I composed, not one but two poems over back-to-back days, trying to experiment with style and depth. The theme remains the same, that of my learning from the tiny bird. However, the first is more rhythmic, focusing on the play of syllables and rhymes, creating almost a ballad-style poem, with quatrains and a sing-song consistently rhythmic ABCB pattern. In contrast, with the second one, I worked on a blank verse: with unyoking of the need for meters and rhythms, I felt freer to focus on the words and with it a bit of depth. No more rhythm, just resonance of emotions.

Irrespective of form, the message remains – what we can learn from the wider word, reflected in a microcosm in my tiny garden.

 

I:

Naughty Miner, Noisy Miner,

Chasing every bird,

I wonder when it turned my garden’s

Self-appointed guard

 

Spring is here, the swooping bird -

It seems to shield its nest,

Now, every passer-by is foe

And no one can be guest

 

Drat the Miner, not again

For here, once more, it goes,

It chases cuckoo, galah, shrike

And lorikeets and crows

 

It even goes after the quiet

Brooding spotted doves,

Its tiny world is full of rage

There’s nothing that it loves

 

The morning’s filled with noisy shrills,

(Or war-cry that it is)

But when the afternoon turns quiet,

There’s something more than bliss

 

The silence suddenly turns loud

Perhaps it is too quiet,

I can’t help looking for

The bird, its pecking fight

 

The golden sun, a painting still

That seems to wait for life -

A tiny bird, a fiery soul

Ushering in some strife

 

I smile, that even noises can

Brim full with zest of spring,

Noisy miner wakes us all

Even without a sing…

 

28th November 2025

 

II. Blank verse version:

 

Noisy miner

Overshadows my garden;

It is nesting Spring

And all passers-by

Turn intruders

In its guardian eye

 

The morning is drowned

In its squawks and cries

The shrikes, lories

Galahs and crows

Are all heckled

Even the calm, brooding

 

Spotted dove

Doesn’t get spared

Noisy bird

Annoying bird

This garden, not even mine

And you assume it’s yours

 

But as afternoon unfurls

A golden silence

Sounds too deafening,

The quiet world

Turns a lifeless painting

And I surprise myself -

I long for the miner’s cry

I realise my folly –

Bucketing good and bad

Sonorous and noisy

In human ears

When nature

 

Transcends above

Far above,

Measuring life

Beyond man’s myopia

Through the cosmic lens

Of existence alone

 

I look out of my window

The hector returns

Iring over a lark;

This time, I smile

As Spring seems to return

To my tiny garden…

 

29^th November, 2025