An Unexpected Tui

There was a tui singing this morning from a neighbour’s tree. On 2 February this year I described in my blog at being surprised to hear a tui singing at night. Here’s a poem I wrote a few days later.


AN UNEXPECTED TUI

To my knowledge
I have never heard
a nightingale

As a boy
on the Okuti farm
moreporks mourned nightly

Last night
in the darkened city
an unexpected tui sang

clear & loud in moonlight.
Keats keep your nightingale
amidst the alien corn

for I’ve heard a tui
toll midnight
in the hills of home.

Harvey McQueen