FR38: Dec
2008
Walleah
Press
Currajah
Famous
Reporter
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Accent and Rhythm
- These summer days, still, no
wind,
- the heat clings.
- Languid, your body begs for
sleep
- like those September afternoons en
Sevilla
- lying in the rich dark
- watching a gecko stop and pace,
- stop and pace across the
ceiling.
- In the cobbled courtyard potted
palms
- stretch up to ozone blue.
- Beyond the wall high like a
monastery,
- the maze of curved streets is
- quiet, no scooter-horns to warn
- pedestrians moving along
- the hem of footpath.
-
- In Hobart gums shed bark
- onto cracked, thirsty ground.
- Sunburnt trunks peel like skin,
- underneath moist and soft,
almost too delicate.
- Moths exhausted by flight and
black insect specks
- litter the lino.
- We hanker for a thunderstorm
- to quench the yellow grass,
- relieve itchy eyes, clear the
air of dust.
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- En Sevilla terracotta
dust covers your shoes. At the Real Alcazar
- a downpour patterns the paths,
- gouges miniature runnels
- into the compacted ground.
- Evenings are freshly dressed
with people
- in lime-green, orange, pink and
red
- their paseo a promenade,
colours flirt.
- Children dash about the plaza,
- behind trees and benches tiled
in blue.
- Andalusian pride is
foot-stamping, fierce, forthright,
- con brio y gusto
- old ladies muscle about in noisy
groups.
- Desire for conversation greets
the twilight,
- an off-beat full of promise.
I’m left to imagine.
- Fire-works laughter cracks open
the night.
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- In Hobart we walk along a beach
- our Celtic skins pink and
freckled, too delicate.
- At the edge of the sea-river
- parents dip babies into waves,
- dogs cavort, sprinters arrow
past
- the casual chat of lives
scattered across the sand.
- I catch fragments.
- Neurologist a man says in
tones of defiance, brain tumor.
- Girls in new bikinis call Roxy,
Sheba,
- chase Christmas puppies wet and
wobbly.
- These words I understand, yet
I’m left to imagine.
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- There’s no frill in the
voice, no wailing song,
- it’s the space here
that’s permissive,
- fewer people make a crowd.
- In the background a mountain
darkens
- over this tiny city, its heart a
pueblo,
- and the riot of a red sky
- clear of smoke, still, no wind,
- readies for a full moon.
Anne Collins is a poet,
essayist, reviewer and writer of fiction. She lives in Hobart.
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