Ibis Visitors, Ventnor

To us they came again
back silently.
Regal birds
statuesque,
pointed
down curved bills
probing grass,
leaving gifts
of shed feathers,
silken soft
white,
black speckled
and striped ‒
early dot paintings
of yonder years.

Dating Dotterels

Suddenly I spy
a pair of hooded dotterels
darting among the seaweed
playing hide ‘n’ seek
striding speedily across the sands …
fluting to each other
as they fly off together
sweeping over the sea …
soaring
and
circling
till they return
to their vulnerable nest
on Ventnor’s windswept shore.

Junette Schoell returns to Poet’s Corner after two years with poems inspired by nature. Born in the Barossa Valley, she began writing poetry when living on Kangaroo Island, where she began her teaching career. With an Arts degree in English and History from the University of Adelaide, she then taught in private and public schools in Adelaide and Melbourne before retiring to focus on family and health, train as a counsellor and originate various care groups in her local church community. Since she has had a holiday house at Ventnor on Phillip Island, that environment has been the source of inspiration for poems such as today’s.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.