#tasmania
Twisting waves of shattered glass
break upon a narrow beach
which wakes and opens yellow hands,
to greet the tide within its reach.
A sheltered place, where marram grass
bows and bends in the ocean breeze,
and sticky hop-bush butterflies
stop and perch to take their ease.
A neglected strip of margin land,
no coffee shops or ice cream stands,
just wind and water, sand and sea,
exactly as its supposed to be
Feb 19
Feb 19, 2026 at 12:53 AM UTC
Out on the road,
far from town and city
Where wallabies roam
and birds nestle in tree tops
Amongst the wilderness
A most heavenly sight I saw
There in that celestial dome above
More stars then one could hope to count
Yellow, gold, silver, blue
All aglow that autumn night.
That vastness of such burning beauty
Seemed incomparable to the city’s light
The shining landscape no mind could fully know
The Maker’s thought which made them glow.
This is what I saw one cold autumn night
Far from city or from town
Where wallabies roam and birds nestle in tree tops
This is where one finds the celestial treasury.
Nov 28, 2025
Nov 28, 2025 at 6:50 AM UTC
The bar-tailed godwit
caught birddom by surprise
When word got out
just how far this bird flies
A juvenile Limosa lapponica,
satellite tag 2-3-4-6-8-4
flew nonstop from Alaska
to the Tasmanian shore!
13,560 kilometers nonstop,
eleven days and nights
A new world record for
marathon bird flights
“From Alaska to Tasmania?
The devil, you say!”
cried ravens and crows,
“Every bird knows
Claiming to fly 8400 miles
To the Tasmanian isles—
is the height of audacity!
No bird has the capacity
We protest with pugnacity
Demanding veracity!”
The godwits conveyed
a very chill groove
They had, after all
nothing to prove
having set the prior
world records in ‘20 and ‘21
A controversy was brewing
Would their achievements
be undone?
A commission was appointed
for a bird’s-eye review
into the facts of the matter
the truth to pursue
Wise owls were chosen
to adjudicate this claim
To settle once and for all
who deserved the acclaim
First item considered
had scientific backing
Since satellite data
Allowed accurate tracking
Of the tagged young bird’s
ultramarathon flights
The facts indisputable
No need for bird fights,
ending investigation into
this migration gyration
Bar-tailed godwits awarded
the Oiseau de Plume
for being the farthest nonstop
flying bird in the room
The Arctic terns too
received acclamation
For flying the farthest
In their migration—pole to pole,
24,000 miles each year
causing most birds present to
stand up and cheer
in spontaneous applause—
But not all birds were willing
To concede their cause
Displaying proclivity
to resist the festivity
The crows and ravens
As they stormed out the door
vowed in unison, wings clenched,
“Nevermore!”
Mark Toney © 2022
Based on a true story with poetic license added for spice.
When was the last time you flew 8400 miles nonstop? A bar-tailed godwit flew nonstop over 8400 miles from Alaska to Tasmania from October 13 through 24, 2022, setting a new world record for nonstop bird flight.
Oct 29, 2022
Oct 29, 2022 at 10:21 PM UTC
In the morning when you're thinking
Of the chores that lay ahead,
When the shower water's freezing,
When there's numbness in your head;
And the telephone is ringing
And there's someone at the door,
And the neighbour's dog is singing
And there's toys strewn on the floor;
When the kids are all a-squabbling,
When their music is too loud;
When the car has trouble starting
And it makes a knocking sound;
When you breathe a heavy sigh
And wish this day would pass you by
When the office phone is ringing
In the middle of your Zoom,
And the coffee tastes disgusting
And your client's a buffoon;
And your secretary is waving
As she tries to catch your eye,
And she's holding the receiver
With a teardrop in her eye;
And her frantic face is straining
As she passes you the phone,
And you hear the desperation
In the voice that calls you home;
When you breathe a heavy sigh
And wish this day would pass you by
At the school gate is a circus
And you think that you're the clown,
And your feet feel far too heavy
As they scrape along the ground;
And the sirens are a-wailing
As the uniforms go by,
And you feel your nerves are failing
And you dare not catch an eye;
And the headteacher is waiting
With his head bowed to his chest,
And he beckons you to join him
And he leads you from the rest;
And you breathe a heavy sigh
And wish this day would pass you by
And his words impart a sadness
That you cannot understand,
And you're staring at your fingers
As he's holding tight your hand;
And you see a policeman crying
Huddled on the stony ground,
With his colleagues standing by him
And they never make a sound;
And you walk across the carpark
And you walk towards the spot
Where the ambulance is waiting
And your stomach's in a knot;
And you breathe a heavy sigh
And wish this day had passed you by
And the doctor grabs your shoulder
As you stand outside the room
Where your broken child is laying
In the dimness and the gloom;
And the vest they wore this morning
Is ******* up and on the bed,
And there's tubes still in their nostrils
And their sheets are stained with red;
And he's talking and he's talking
But you don't hear what he said,
Just the faintest understanding
That perhaps someone is dead;
And you breathe a heavy sigh
And wish this day had passed you by
Just this morning you were thinking
Of the chores that lay ahead,
With the shower water freezing,
And a numbness in your head;
And the telephone was ringing
There was someone at the door,
And the neighbour's dog was singing
There were toys strewn on the floor;
And the kids were all a-squabbling,
How you miss that happy sound;
And the music they were playing,
You would love to hear it loud;
And the car had trouble starting
And it made a knocking sound;
Can you breathe one heavy sigh,
And have this day just pass you by?
Dec 16, 2021
Dec 16, 2021 at 9:07 AM UTC
And the very last, the endling,
Caged in the sunlight at Beaumaris Zoo,
Tired of the poking and the prodding
Paced out of existence into history,
Into emblem and icon
Legend and label,
On to things protected by copyright,
Footage and fable,
And the internet's electric jungle,
And into that great white emptiness
Of extinction,
That giant ship which we are building,
Stacking and storing,
Fitting and filling,
Recording into the grand voyage
Of oblivion.
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 2:25 PM UTC