A visit to Wandin, outside Melbourne
Phil, as we turned into his drive-way,
was in earmuffs revving his chain-saw,
standing over the big dark felled tree
like Saint George over his dragon.
Dreading the moment when he might say
'Hold it here, and cut through there',
I was glad to see him switch off
and instead show us his piece of land.
It had been family's for decades,
many big trees now - he'd known as small ones;
the cottage had been renovated twice,
galvo chimneys now brick,
clay kitchen floor built over,
outhouse where five boys slept,
all now fated to be demolished
and replaced with something larger,
more comfortable and easy on the eye.
Cherry orchards were all along the valley,
with a 'Cherry Ripe' factory nearby -
till a disease took out all the trees.
Strawberries took over, though none are in view.
Uphill there's an overgrown dam
without much water in it -
the neighbours' new menage for their horses
stopped the rain trickling this way.
I crouched by the rusty pump -
with a wooden flywheel! -
and the date 1910 still readable.
No irrigated orchard now.
Just grass and old trees needing work.
He started up the chain-saw and ripped
fiercely into the prostrate dragon.
They'd already burned much of it.
'Soon we'll get the stump burning too.'
This is Phil's way of 're-connecting'.
For years the place reeked of decay,
and his first marriage going wrong.
Now with Kaye's help it's renewal and hope.
They phone his son's number on their mobile.
From the doomed cottage Ben emerges,
tousled, tattooed, to shake hands.
Max Richards
Doncaster, Melbourne
Wednesday 6 September 2006
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