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LIFE IN THE CEMETERY
3. Viewing The Dirt-Washed Toys
the sombre toys are gathered around the graves of dead children, the loyal squeaky dogs & angelic lambs, teddy bears, trains & a rugged old barbie, a fairy drag queen with a broken wand & tattered frock, toys that need the hands of children placed upon them, a very frail faded pink rabbit, a kitten in a basket, a porcelain chicken as yellow as a sun, beneath the wide overhead weather & mid-december insect glitter, there are no furless bears with missing noses or eyes, no plush & stodgy toys, no toys to remind us of the absorption of rain, that constant rain of melbourne, months on end of quiet mist, for days & nights, for many lonely hours, the rain that seeps in slowly, the gentle velvet rain that remains & is constant, there are no plush toys to absorb it & to fall away beneath its light dissension, its even drop & splash, instead there are toys to capture the movement of wind, there are toys to fade away in the high glary light of an australian sun, toys to raise their plastic hands & smile, there are toys to be lifted by god, to stand still, ageless & unchanging amongst the chirp of cicadas from the green haze, there are childrens' graves smothered with toys & cradled by heat, that builds up in matchbox cars & pieces of plastic track that are never ever used, yet they stay suspended this way forever, stone angels, they guard the dirt & grass of children, take a big carp fish that has been landbound just to be with them, as the wind blows along & chops up grass like a river, as the wind is gathered into the propellers of the wind receiving toys, into the gay carousels & sturdy windmills, into the wild hearts of whirlygigs & wheels, into the choppy flight of the bright wooden rainbow lorikeets, with black painted beaks, that clap their brittle wings up & down, bobbing from frayed elastic hanging in the paperbarks & the elephants & basset hounds with flying ears, blown by wind, so that the wind will move the dead, will shift its presence through here, so that it will not stop, so that it will hurry the children along, like to school or home, or across a pedestrian, or inside before night or a storm, for their own little safety & protection, but they just remain here, as the sky moves across them, but doesn't move them, the wind-generated toys placed by grieving parents as a precaution, taking them into what is left of their lives, wind-propelled things, many small toys & tin soldiers standing guard, plastic angels, toppled gnomes & santas with dirty faces, in the absence of the parents, fresh toys & shrinking balloons releasing air, communities of toys & sweet dreams, gathering around, gathering age, toys without children fading in the sun & the sun fading in them, the rain-washed expression of toys, toys for long long years, your only companions, the mournful dog, the sweetest lamb & the saddest elephant |
