Poetry Blog No 113 January Song

JANUARY SONG

Written a few years ago but still applicable to this time of year- a sort of new year poem from sub-tropical southern hemisphere. January is named after the Roman God Janus.

Quotes from Wikipedia - In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings and transitions, and thereby of gates, doors, doorways, passages and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past. It is conventionally thought that the month of January is named for Janus.

The pheasant coucal is a type of large cuckoo- The pheasant coucal (Centropus phasianinus) is a species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae. It is found in Australia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and subtropical or tropical mangrove forests. It has adapted well to canefields in northern Australia. The pheasant coucal is unusual among Australian cuckoos in that it incubates and raises its own young instead of laying its eggs in the nest of another species.

 James Niland from Brisbane, Australia - Pheasant Coucal Uploaded by snowmanradio

Janus

                              JANUARY SONG

The rain arrived, the grass is high,

Green armies raising overnight

Their spears to eat the sun and seed

And conquer all the space around.

The sky is cloud-patched and the air

Sits heavy with day’s humid heat

And stillness brings a visitation

Of flies upon their summer wings.

The pheasant coucal’s mating call

Whoop-whoops through drifting afternoon

With faintest smell of maybe rain-

Then all around cicadas drum.

The god with his two faces looks

To past and future standing now-

The Janus of the month whose mind

Would gaze through these warm-dreaming days.

The new year dawns in summer heat

With holidays’ up-springing green.

My mind is not so god-like keen

And struggles with my purposes.

Still days shall rise. I try to set

Some course for future hours to be

And once more trim that frail craft hope

To sail upon that endless sea.