Morning’s Burnt-Orange Awakening
By Connor, Year 7
The morning arrives
As the day awakens, the world stirs to life, with insects, birds, and people alike gently easing into the rhythm of the morning
Stone-grey blinds open signalling the start of a new day
Steam rising from a coffee-filled mug on a quiet kitchen counter — the first sign of life in an otherwise yet-to-rise house
The burnt-orange rays of the sun shine gloriously through the cotton-candy clouds
While dew-glistened leaves reflect the morning sky
The blue-winged, alert-eyed kookaburras laugh raucously, while sitting in the sun-dappled branches of the old gum trees
Pulse-like hums of cicadas
their sun-burnished wings catching the light like polished glass
Sporadic honks break the engine hum of cars
driven by coffee-clutching commuters
steering through the morning haze
Black-and-white magpies stand
like branch-perched sentinels surveying their territory
with their liquid, flute-like warbles echoing through the dawn
The screeching, rapid-fire calls of the noisy miners
punctuate the dawn
as the quick-beaked scavengers hop
from branch to branch.
Morning’s Burnt-Orange Awakening by Connor is an excerpt from Deadly Writing. Deadly Writing explores significant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices. Each week, students explore a range of texts crafted by First Nations artists and use them as inspiration for their own writing. They learn about Indigenous cultures and languages from diverse communities around Australia, and explore their own experiences and values as they write a series of short pieces of writing, producing a personal anthology. Students learn about and experiment with a variety of editing strategies as they prepare their own writing for publication. Deadly, unna?