Road Kill

or how to be undepressed

Drive the joyful way

Not the quickest

Notice the dead rabbit

 in the road

Picked at by

a large black raven

Quietly move towards it

in an electric vehicle

Honk the bird

out of the way

Notice

Twelve or more

pink crested galahs on a wire

usually seen on the ground

pecking away

while pushing Eliana’s pram

she’s watching

as am I

as we quietly creep closer

whoosh they fly away

Notice

Old friends

the eucalypts

arching

swaying

more creative

in their shapes

and colours

than my paintings

Drive the joyful way

Notice

Australia Australian Broadcasting Corporation book review Book titles camping Canberra Charles Eugene Purdy Christian Science Dean Koontz E. S. Hutchison Eastern Oklahoma State Mental Hospital family and fiction father fiction Gary Snyder Helen Purdy Kansas Kansas City Kenneth Patchen Kenya Kosciusko National Park Life Expectancy Love Pirate MidWest Missouri Nairobi New South Wales nobody’s a long time novel novels as history Oakland Oklahoma Pinch River poetry public library reconciliation title Tracking the Human trees Tulsa Tulsa Daily World USA Vinita W. Lon Hutchison Whales

Australia Australian Broadcasting Corporation book review Book titles camping Canberra Charles Eugene Purdy Christian Science Dean Koontz E. S. Hutchison Eastern Oklahoma State Mental Hospital family and fiction father fiction Gary Snyder Helen Purdy Kansas Kansas City Kenneth Patchen Kenya Kosciusko National Park Life Expectancy Love Pirate MidWest Missouri Nairobi New South Wales nobody’s a long time novel novels as history Oakland Oklahoma Pinch River poetry public library reconciliation title Tracking the Human trees Tulsa Tulsa Daily World USA Vinita W. Lon Hutchison Whales

Australia Australian Broadcasting Corporation book review Book titles camping Canberra Charles Eugene Purdy Christian Science Dean Koontz E. S. Hutchison Eastern Oklahoma State Mental Hospital family and fiction father fiction Gary Snyder Helen Purdy Kansas Kansas City Kenneth Patchen Kenya Kosciusko National Park Life Expectancy Love Pirate MidWest Missouri Nairobi New South Wales nobody’s a long time novel novels as history Oakland Oklahoma Pinch River poetry public library reconciliation title Tracking the Human trees Tulsa Tulsa Daily World USA Vinita W. Lon Hutchison Whales

Author: Pamela Collett

I was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. I have a B.A. from Stanford University and a M.Sc. from Cornell University. I have lived and worked in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland, California as well as in Washington, DC. Outside the United States, I lived and worked in Venezuela, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Uganda, Somalia and Kenya. I currently live in Canberra, Australia. I edited three books: Bold Plum: with the Guerillas in China's War against Japan by Hsiao Li Lindsay; Peace and Milk: Scenes of Northern Somalia by James Lindsay and Fatima Jibrell; and Solo vale si piensas rápido by Mehedy Lopez, a book of poetry in Spanish. In 2016, I published a book of my poetry and drawings, Silence Spoken. I have taught communication skills, English as a second language, and English for journalists (in Beijing, China) at university and secondary school levels. I was a features writer for the Daily Journal, (Caracas, Venezuela), and The Chronicle of Higher Education. I am a member of the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) Writers Centre, active in a writers’ group and a contributor to poetry readings, That Poetry Thing, in Canberra, Australia.

2 thoughts on “Road Kill”

  1. I paid attention today to the trees and other sites when walking. Saw several things I hadn’t noticed before. Also, it was quite windy today, and I watched the three birds I saw in the sky. I wondered what it was like for them to be out in this wind. Maybe they were daredevil birds that loved the challenge of flying in the wind!

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  2. Lovely movement in your watercolour, Pamela. The trees seem to be swaying, dancing….

    Sent from my iPhone

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