In Fawkner Park

The reek of fuming asphalt  – 
pungent sweet yet acrid  – 
exerts a quickening
in my slumbering 

antique memory bank:
the leashed dog and I lean 
into the nostril-distending 
eye-widening scene:

what he smells and sees is this: 
seven men in garish hi-vis 
jackets: four merely look 
while two with spades work

the sliding asphalt from their tip-truck
into stolid wheelbarrows, 
tilting the bitumen-black
steaming mix forward
 
into furrowed walk-ways
they’ve raked between 
the gates at the back
of two tall office-blocks

(tucked between these
are our nineteen-thirties 
art-deco three-storey 
flats  –  cream-painted brick)

and the old sealed track 
along this side of the park.
It runs between the cricket pitch
now marked out for soccer

and the spread of succulents 
with tall red hot poker
stalks they’ve planted and neglect  – 
low-maintenance stretch of park.
 
One workman plies the blunt brute 
mechanical pogo stick,
hammering soft asphalt
into hard smooth new path.

And  –  cool!  –  it’s already cooled.
No chance of soft-concrete-style
boot- and paw-print. We pad
through till we reach our locked gate.

                     *

What I see is: a country school 
playground  –  ’forties Taranaki  – 
pitted, scored and tree-root cracked,
under repair by a working bee 

of  –  mostly farmers  –  school Dads;
nearby me and other kids
sidelined on pine-needles  – 
nearby cypress windbreaks  – 

inhaling keenly while each looks
forward to better ball bounce,
better chucking, better kicks,
and soon a picnic lunch.

                    *

Somewhere, everywhere, ten o’clock
at length has struck, the tip-truck
has un-tipped, time for the team to knock
off for a slow drink, slower smoke.

We unlock the private gate, backs
turned on our asphalt-breath park,
its Moreton Bay Fig avenues, monkey- 
puzzle trees, new lindens, old eucalypts;

dog and I cross the winter-dank 
old-asphalt car-crammed parking
back-area of our sixty-flat block, 
exposed plumbing and chimney-stacks;

make our way – one weary, one not –
up the steep back stairs eight units
share, in the kitchen door, off leash
at last, exercised, experienced.

Water in bowl, coffee in mug. 
Take some deep breaths,
respite from stimulus; rest
snoozing stretched on the rug.

Flashback outbreaks subside.
Compound-adjective-laden phrases
drift near. But did my Dad share
my luncheon-sausage sandwich that day?

Did he light his pipe and blow the smoke
my way for me to savour?
It sees near my nostrils now, the flavour
of his tobacco and his rare caress.

Do I truly recall a tip-truck?
Slowly, surely, tree-roots stir
beneath hammered-down
asphalt anytime anywhere.