Winter In A Sydney Park
In the dank and green-leafed gully
of the affluent Sydney suburb,
rain drips from the arches of the old bridge,
coursing down the cracked and moss-encrusted
stones
and the guttering around the roof
of the weathered café where the young mothers sit
over their first lattes of the day.
Three-year-olds at tennis lessons
arbitrarily lunge or miss
or kick the yellow balls,
or stop to argue, or to fight each other,
till, long-suffering, their coach
with care,
prizes them apart.
On the asphalt leaf-strewn tracks
around the park,
sweating young men, or girls in gaudy lycra,
jog, or cycle, meanwhile talking on their phones,
or to their dogs,
whose names are quaint, or ostentatious,
Montmorency, Clemency, Randolf,
or Big Boy.
Away from such overt activity,
a grey-haired woman,
on her knees,
pulls out lantana, nasturtiums,
fleabane and the green Madeira vine,
escaped from gardens,
or intentionally grown
to "beautify" the park.
And there’s an overhang of sandstone,
splintering in coloured swathes
of yellow, ochre, brown,
where maybe once the early owners of the land
met to converse, or find a partner,
threaten war,
or sue for peace,
or reinforce their secret lore,
their songs, their chants,
their dark inheritance.
The elk’s horn, coral ferns and maidenhair,
mosses and grey-laced lichens,
channel the raindrops,
runneling from the roof
of this once-secret cave.
© Mary Kille
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