A Hopeful Prayer

• Joshua Amoils, Grade 7
• Poetry
• 2013

The kookaburras were once young,
When their coats were as brown as a willow tree’s neck,
When their wings soared through the utopia’s clean air,
They knew the wind was a fair creature balancing the scale of life.

The wind carried the seagulls from a land unknown,
The two birds being family, but strangers in mindset.
A mindset that craved for more food,
It was this hunger that differentiated them,
It was this hunger that sought war between them.

The wind was behind the seagulls as they were ferocious in their attack,
With their pointed beaks and eyes as red as the blood of the kookaburras.
The kookaburras fought bravely against the massacre,
But the wind stood strong, so the gulls prevailed.

As the wind flowed, so did time,
The seagulls then wanted to rid themselves of the kookaburras.
So they bred themselves with the other bird,
Scarring the kookaburra’s feathers with their wretched white.

Their contagious laughter lost beneath the screech of the seagulls,
Their beautiful feathers stained with foreign dye,
The kookaburras are now forgotten, surviving on the power of hope,
Hope that the wind will change once more.