Robert Verdon, #64, Pialligo

drove back to the farm Saturday

much of the old windbreak has gone

and the paddocks march naked down to the river

no one about, anonymous green crops,

no semaphore on the citied horizon,

but memories sweep across the steppe of the child-dwarfing ocean

the gate is locked against the river

we turn and drive past a snooty ex-farmhouse inn

and of course, it is all so small, so insignificant

down at the end of Kallaroo Rd

I almost gasp — is an airport high-rise

and other transitory architecture and aircraft of an age built to fade

it was always full of planes, that sky

for a child who had known only land and sea;

now out there, a whole new generation thunders off into oblivion