Currawong

 All day, currawongs. Song broader than magpies. End whistles. At least ten in the cootamundra, ten out the back. Walls of white rain interrupt. Then they resume. Indecipherable group squabble. Reading Katherine Mansfield, I look up. A [currawong] on the branch outside. Bashes something against it. Bubble plastic, now supple, or dead. Abandons it. Lunch conversation: nesting or foraging? Corresponding shapely blackness our side of the glass. Obsidian staring pointedly at branches cats cannot reach. Currawongs can. Their call and return. What are they saying? What’s with the whistle? Another shower blindsides the window. Then return, and call. All day.