Melbourne Central Cemetery
Summary
So finally you went
to Melbourne,
jostled across Bass Strait
aboard The Pateena.
Presumptuous to count
on a return you wrote
to grandson Jack.
And so it was.You died
at 171 Victoria Parade,
suburb of Fitzroy. At noon,
October twenty-first,
a century ago.
No hour-long flights,
no ship equipped
to take a body back
to Hobart. No-one
chipping BelovedWife
on Charles's stone.
You're nowhere I
could wish for you,
like windswept Bruny Point,
the yellow orchids
below the lighthouse,
feet pointing to the snowy South,
or that stranded granite
Leviathan at Stanley, where
the night above the jetties
has such stars in it,
or Cradle Mountain
where people go to photograph
reflections in Dove Lake,
or then perhaps Green's Beach
among the frisky wallabies,
lumbering wombats, where dear Kaye
forgot the bread and almost set
on fire the picnic table, best of all
the walled, scented garden
of Albion House — books, pictures, music,
fine wines and food — that you (yes, you)
got me invited to.
Last chance, and something of
an off-chance, even if it bites the dust,
leaves ashes in the mouth, I mean
for me to pay respects.
Sunday, cemetery office shut,
no hope of documentary help,
map to show me your last bit
of colonising. Blow flies, blow flies
everywhere, nostrils, mouth. And so
I scuff cindery paths
round battered stones, hop
over rusted rails in Death's
neglected territory, the older
graves that say This is the mark
we came to make. But you
I cannot stumble on in time.
You're in here somewhere, not
talking, not anything. I head out past
new immigrant-Italian polished marble.
Who says Magnificence is dead?
Men, women down on knees,
washing, buffing dry, meticulous
with flowers, coddling their dead
as if just love might keep them near.
I tried my best. But time's a bully.
There are clouds to cut, Louisa Anne.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Cutting the Clouds Towards , pp. 63 - 65Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 1999