by LYNDAL TURNER
I remember how it was to stand,
a child on the cracked concrete stoop of the old shed,
arms up like blinkers, glad
hands buried in the sky’s blue.
Tractors would come and go; trucks
with bellies of stainless steel, glinting and grinding
at the turn of track and road,
would arrive each day for our daily milk,
before an audience of square noses and liquid
eyes in rapt watchfulness:
the occasional unhoping bleat,
hoof-shuffle and tail-whip.
I remember how it was to lie,
inert in the spring fodder, ready to leap out
at the first lick of calf curiosity,
only to be overlooked
for sun and a stretched recline,
no more noticing small birds hopping lightly over
than rabbits winding leisurely in between,
come to steal the sleeping grass.
West Gippsland, VIC