Sarah St Vincent Welch #115 Looking at a print of Blackman’s ‘There was’ at Ginninderra Medical Centre, Anzac Day 2016

a school hat, familiar, loved

panama posh and proper

practical

so valuable, not to be lost

lest a hounding, a scolding,

or worse, shaming at all I lost,

chased hat when snatched by

willy willy or teaser or friend

hat soft and worn

as memory's bed cover,

tatter edged, grey banded

this pulled up memory

in the doctors’ surgery

reading in Summer silently,

when concentration was young

and easy, always with a waft

of a promise maybe

a dip, playing Marco Polo,

brandings, spitting water

like spouts in each others’ face,

screaming, breaking a wake –

then a quietening down of heat

and splash

to reading

before the Blackman print

I don’t forget today, this one is

called ‘There was,’ a schoolgirl

reading

alone in a playground

time over her shoulder,

it deserves more gazing

than my wait allows, but

I let it lift my mind

I’m guilty not to think more

of war today, to focus on her

on the day put aside to

think of war,

just can’t just can’t just can’t,

thinking on it every other day

pleated pasts, mute violence

shadowed memorials

continuing, I will dream with her

on this national day

the river in my hands

flowers wilting at my brim
and look down into the old pages