Slow to get to this one from last week, Max. I like the Sistas cafe nostalgia. These smiling service providers. We
can only hope they offer their warmth somewhere else now. You remind me that I hope Bridge to Eden cafe is
still operatiing in Hurstbridge when I get home. Not sistas but two girls who favour wearing peasant dresses
and Blundstone boots and who serve warm lattes with a chat and a smile.
I offer by contrast this semi-snap from two days ago:
E T RA
On a townless stretch of Bruce Highway
closer to Rockhampton than Sarena,
lies a roadhouse so desolate that six
of the once red upper case letters
announcing its function have
faded to white or fallen.
Bill
On Wed, Jul 23rd, 2014 at 10:50 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> The Lost Cafe
>
> Nostalgic already for something
> lost just a few months ago,
> that’s me, pining for an hour or so
>
> back on the wide verandah
> of the Fawkner Park tennis
> pavilion - ‘Cafe Fawkner’
>
> says its faded awning - lately,
> but no longer, Sistas Cafe.
> Admirable both, the sisters,
>
> tall slim and smiling. Which was which
> I never learned, even while
> ordering one of the toasties
>
> they’d named after themselves.
> What were those names again? -
> something East European.
>
> One had a son called Harley -
> his Dad no doubt a bikie.
> When not at kindergarten
>
> at the north edge of the pavilion
> he’d sit at a corner table, quiet
> with paper and coloured pens.
>
> I’d leash my dog by the best
> verandah possie, pay for coffee
> and toastie, join the dog; together
>
> we’d survey the park’s westward
> prospect - high-fenced tennis courts
> often the scene of coaching -
>
> the younger the player the wilder
> the hits. (Balls fell where later my dog
> lurched and gripped his take-home gift.)
>
> My snack and drink would arrive,
> with one of those brilliant smiles.
> Soon I’d feel the benefit
>
> in mouth, stomach, and caffeine-
> roused brain - the kids’ tennis
> seemed somehow improved.
>
> Beyond, through the grand trees,
> I’d glimpse my new home,
> one of those old flats I like
>
> to tell you about. ‘Kia Ora’! -
> Maori for hello and welcome -
> here in Melbourne because
>
> the cordial-factory tycoon
> wanted flats for his staff.
> Art deco? - ‘Streamline moderne’,
>
> not bad for the 1930s!
> Pity about the office blocks
> on either side. My vantage point
>
> on the sisters’ verandah put
> all in green perspective.
> Good to spend time here most days.
>
> Till one morning - it’s locked!
> Next, reopened - without food,
> just coffee - sold me by a woman
>
> neither slim nor tall nor smiling.
> The sisters had done a bunk.
> Well, an hour on the verandah
>
> isn’t what it was. I’ve changed
> my routine. Dog and I march
> briskly past, holding ourselves in.
>
> Elsewhere, without me, Harley may
> continue his colouring-in.
> Coffee and eponymous toasties -
>
> shared privately by the lovely sisters.
>
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