Not You, You Are Lucky

In Balranald, Mango takes baby B-B to look at frog structures.

Mango spots one, outside a Bunnings.

There's one! says Mango.

Was there ever a time when baby B-B would have laughed to see a large metal Southern Bell Frog, painted bright green, wheeling a wheelbarrow loaded with products, grinning, and wearing a hat?

No. Once he was too immature to even know it was meant to be funny. And now he has matured far too much to believe that it is.

It's all wrong, says baby B-B.

I see your point, says Mango. I don't particularly like anthropomorphic depictions either. But I thought you might. What's up?

You know, says baby B-B darkly.

Is it the chickens? asks Mango.

Why do they have to die? asks baby B-B

So people can eat them, says Mango.

Will people eat me? asks baby B-B.

No, not you, says Mango. You are lucky. You're a bristlebird. You are endangered.

Baby B-B does not like the sound of endangered. He frowns and his eyes fill with tears.

Cheer up, says Mango. We're only ten hours away from your mother.

What if he's forgotten all about me? asks baby B-B.

Curse that Alice! thinks Mango. She has awakened all sorts of anxieties in baby B-B.

Your mother is not like just any old mother, says Mango brightly. I heard Unni tell Joshy that he was a poet.

What's a poet? sniffs baby B-B.

It's a person who remembers things in a particular way, and later describes them, says Mango, ( probably thinking of Wordsworth).

I can do that, says baby B-B.

No you can't, says Mango. It takes years of practice.

I remember things in a particular way, says baby B-B. I remember the camp fires and the marshmallow I choked on, then I remember the cherries.

Yes, but that's not a POEM, says Mango. You have to transform it.

Baby B-B begins to extemporise:

I was born into trouble
left in a coffee cup by my mother
so I'm going back to my mother
he is a poet like me

it's a long journey with mango
she flies all the time
except when she stops to reward me

there is a campfire
sparks fly upwards
and smoke
I choke
on a flake of burnt sugar

when I learn to speak
mango gives me cherries
she turns violet
like a hypothetical macaw

we're on a bus
with people
who get paid to kill chickens.

when we get off the bus we cheer ourselves up
by looking at green painted frogs

I don't know about you mango
but it isn't enough
not enough
to make me feel cheerful


That's not bad, says Mango.