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     Flowers and Flags

From the tram to town
you see the green Domain -
first on your right
 
flowers at the foot 
of Weary Dunlop’s statue,
hero of surgery

compassion and morale 
with prisoners of the Japanese. 
Flowers too on his right hand.

Next in the Domain, behind 
the chequered police memorial,
flowers on the grass slope

for the woman killed there last month 
on her way to early work -
some killer-man in the dark.

On the bridge look left - 
under huge letters
A I D S 2 0 1 4 -

flowers for the Aids experts 
on the plane from Amsterdam, 
downed over Ukraine.

Now look right, flowers 
from Melbourne’s Ukrainians 
with flags of two nations.

The tram halts - ‘waiting
till the protest march passes’ -
big flags, hard to identify.

What are the marchers chanting?
something about Israel,
children killed, Palestine.

Thwarted compassion.
Thwarted nations.
As if there’s a solution.

Up the hill, look left.
There a brick wall fell
in a gale on passersby

last year - still the site
bears floral tributes,
some old, some new.

However they die,
they deserve flowers.
Shame about the flags.