This poem was inspired by a lovely 3 days we spent with the Labram family in Yackandandah, just after Easter.
No Boxing Kangaroos
Labram’s hill, Yackandandah
Early morning sketching
No boxing kangaroos
But birds glorious in technicolour
Crimson rosella, lorikeets
Honeyeaters, nature’s gaudiest on show
End of summer autumn tints
And fearful drought’s dire signs
Tall trees felled, grass burnt brown
Victorian landscape in Indigo Shire
Our English friends at home here now
Welcoming us, visiting your new lives
Gold rush history, cottage
In the country township
Speak of settler hardship
Flat whites on The Bakery’s sunlit porch
A forest walk to Woolshed Falls
Then stunned by sunset over sacred rocks
How much you have gained, making
This move, from crowded streets
A world away, England
To blue skies land, with space for all to breathe
For boys to run and spirits grow
Freely, wild and lovely, Australia
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I'm all emotional! It is wonderful to get to see friends in their new context, it makes future contact over the miles seem closer with the memory of images. Hello Mandy, hope I can include you on my grey gap! Jude
ReplyDeleteThank you for your response, Jude. There is emotion in the poem as you say, because Labram gain in their new lives does mean loss for those of us who are now across the world from them. Has been something I've thought about a great deal during this trip, not surprisingly I guess.
ReplyDeleteAm quite sure Mandy will welcome you warmly on your gap, with fabulous banoffee pie and banana bread!