​Wild Birds, Eagle Junction, by Jane Frank

Oiseaux, by Georges Braque (France) 1962

​Wild Birds, Eagle Junction
 
The wild birds all leave my mind at once when the train moves 
        from the platform.
 
I lose myself in the archipelago of colour that is the city sun-
              wrapped in its river, think to myself 
 
that if I travelled on this train every day, threading the suburbs 
                on a line like beads,
 
it might stop the birds from nesting & the mornings might be light,
        whipped like buttercream.
 
I try not to notice the wild birds through the window as they soar 
               over the arc of the bridge 
 
in their low, elegant formations but everything is easier at a distance. 
        The train sways as if plunging underwater
 
& my head is drained empty, only the gentle notifications 
         about approaching stations 
 
& which side to disembark.  They will be waiting for me 
          at my destination
       
—the wild birds— they will ruffle their feathers against my thoughts 
               as I walk home against a flat sky. 

 Jane Frank

This poem is from Gardening on Mars, by Jane Frank (Shearsman Books, 2025.)

Jane Frank is a prize-winning Australian poet, editor and academic. Her most recent collection is Gardening on Mars (Shearsman Books, 2025) and her previous poetry collections Ghosts Struggle to Swim (2023) and Wide River (2020) were published by Calanthe Press.  Her work is widely published in journals and anthologies in Australia and internationally, she is Reviews Editor at StylusLit literary journal and she lectures in the School of Business and Creative Industries at the University of the Sunshine Coast in south east Queensland, Australia.