My favourite time of day is now.
I write these words at five in the morning.
The animals are fed and settled,
I am fed and settled.
The inbox is cleared of clutter—
the important messages waiting
for a later hour.
Now the house is hushed.
The world is still.
And I write.
This is playtime—
my sandpit of words and ideas,
where language shifts and turns,
sometimes building castles,
sometimes collapsing in heaps,
always alive, always surprising.
Outside, the world begins to stir.
Birds call their own beginnings.
Sulphur-crested cockatoos screech.
Lorikeets chatter like nature’s jokers—
bright, bossy,
always getting what they want.
Sometimes a kookaburra joins in,
its laughter breaking the silence open.
For an hour and a half
before the dog grows restless,
I live in this gift of space,
where imagination wakes
more surely than the sun.
At six o’clock the curfew lifts,
and planes descend towards Sydney.
Overhead, a long-haul flight from Doha
threads its way down through the morning sky.
And yes—
I think that is the dog calling.
The Afterword 
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