July The First Poem by Francis Duggan

The grey roos sheltering beneath the pine trees it is a wet and a wintery Winter's day
Yet in the rain the magpie he is piping on a high branch of a tall mountain gray
And yet the weather is not cold or chilly it does not seem a bad start to July
The Winter sun by the rain is hidden and overcast looking the morning sky
The Southern Winter I feel is far more pleasant than the Southern Summer at least the weather never gets too cold
That I do find mild Winter days a bit chilly has to be proof I must be getting old
On the Winter flowering trees the red wattlebirds are calling they have a certain hoarseness in their cry
And the pied currawongs the dark crow sized birds their karrawang notes are uttering as through the park from tree to tree they fly,
The white cockatoos in the drizzling rain are squawking from other birds them one cannot mistake
They are at their noisiest in the gloam of evening and in the early morning at daybreak
Three species of white cockatoo the sulphur crested and long billed and short billed corella by voice and appearance from each other not hard to identify
They live in large flocks and to each other nearby,
The rain drizzling down from a sky that's gloomy gray
But for July the first it is mild enough for a Winter's day.