in the afternoon shadow of the terrace house/ the
tiny soldier beetle is living/ in thin blades of
tussock grass/
every day i stand/ leaning in the
frame of the back doorway/ looking out/ to the
meatworks, factories & panel beaters/
the towers
of flemington highrises/ that land at night like
u.f.o.s/ with misty downward reaching lights/ &
in the distance/ the skin coloured north melbourne
commission units/ i think/ only five more days until
i leave here/ to the warmth of north & family/
the welcoming tears of my grandmother in sydney/ &
the click of satisfaction from my pop/ as i hand
him the melbourne newspapers/
every day i look to
the clump of tussock grass/ spreading in brighter
streaks of green/ towards the blue bell & banksia
sapling/ & the soldier beetle living in the blades/
inbetween flights to elsewhere/
the only native
beetle i have seen in kensington: adrian says/ as
he stares into plants for hours/ becoming their
infant richness/ willing them to grow/
it might have
flown fifty kilometres to live in the grass/ which
he has planted/ in the tiny two by four foot patch
of concrete & soil/
or taken flight into an autumn
sky/ blowing the seeds of natives & introduced
species/ through currents of electromagnetic
radiation/ to moonee ponds & essendon/
to the once
living creek by the horse breaking racecourse/ to
take flight or take root in the trampled down earth/
the soldier beetle surrounding itself/ within the
natural armour of the leaf/ & the plants of
brunswick st nursery now dormant for the winter/
& its living which grips my throat & makes my eyes
water/ i see an autumn butterfly/ tiny & black with
orange flecks on the blue bell by the gold dust
wattle/
adrian sits with plants/ & when he is asleep
he calls them by their botanical names/ & they grow
towards him as far as gippsland/
every ten minutes
an alarm goes off/ a siren screams parallel with
traffic pulling to the left/ a telephone rings out
in a factory/
& trains thunder down twin lines to
newmarket/ & barrels of toxic wastes are loaded onto
trucks from butlers/ & coode island simmers on the
page of our evacuation notices/
& adrian comes to
kensington with deep brown eyes & tender hands for
saplings/ & mount donna buang beetles & butterflies
come to live in the plants
