Not Understood
What’s all this? – men planting tall
flags in our park. Red blue green yellow –
four banners lettered vertically.
Mawson, Bradman, Monash, Flynn!
Some school’s ‘houses’, obviously,
but Flynn? I know some names
of Aussie heroes, but this one?
Errol the film star? ‘In like Flynn?’
I trust SO young these primary kids
won’t be saying THAT to encourage
their team. The Mawsons will plod
on as if through sleet on ice,
the Bradmans – cool dash, as if
flicking a ball for six.
The Monash team will crush the enemy
as if it’s the last push in 1918,
but the Flynns? Now I recall another,
in goggles and dog-collar –
Flynn of the Inland, flying in,
to outback families, medicine.
Shucks, little Master and Miss Goody-
two-shoes, I’m not staying round
while they swarm in soon from their buses,
red blue green or yellow t-shirts.
I’m doddering off in a nostalgic haze –
when I was at school my ‘house’ was Burns!
Others were in Byron! What models were these!
We were all models of ignorance.
How fast could the Browning mob run? –
like polysyllabic hexameters…
As for the Brackens, they only knew
he was Irish, wrote the New Zealand anthem,
and – a maudlin favourite –
‘Not understood – we move along asunder;
Our paths grow wider as the seasons creep
Along the years; we marvel and we wonder
Why life is life, and then we fall asleep
Not understood.’ The brightest banner
beckons us all, old or young, puffing
uphill through falling yellow leaves: FINISH.
Wednesday 13 May 2009
Max Richards (Kiwi in Aus)
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