Early Morning Trucks, Planes, Crows & Magpies

Decelerating trucks coming off the bridge were difficult to differentiate from planes, with memory overriding the altered period now. Early morning the carpenters started up at the townhouses nearing completion on the Stone’s old block. (With Arthur gone there was almost no one else in the street left whose memory went as far back as the Stones.) Earlier still, at first light, the upper branches of the lemon were cast upon the white side panel of Carlo’s wardrobe in front of the Studio bed. Down the street at Bab’s old place Robbie reported the magpies at the top of the Norfolk Pine had been replaced by crows, directly after which the former inhabitants were recalled by an unexpectedly expert throaty warble from Rob. (In the penning here a plane coming in for the descent at Tullamarine, soon replaced by trucks further along the freeway.) Yesterday a long walk was taken by the Yarra into Richmond with a friend in melting autumn light. Every few hundred metres we remarked on the glory of the scene. Was that super real manicured grass near the Tennis Centre, or fake?  (After so long in Singapore one was alert to trickery.) Gossamer veils from the red spectrum fell in different quarters as we walked, stage set after stage set unfolding before us. Still small scale the towers near Flinders station, not oppressively looming. (It was further along on Southbank that the giants were sprouting.) The greenery on every side thrust up its prime lushness like a form of mute pleading. Without exaggeration—difficult as it will be to believe—during the walk there came regular stops with wide-armed flourishes like Emcees made on television for those surrounds. The feeling was shared equally on both sides. Hard on, George quipped deadpan. They did masterful verge plantings in Sing too. What was the difference here? The light possibly, even more than the temperate comfort. No wonder the Chinese & Indians with $$$$ were flocking to these shores—up until very recently, and would resume again immediately the virus was conquered. Nights were chilling and early mornings more so again, as Arthur had often remarked. Tucking in between the sheets and pulling the bedcover over the ears as Arth described his own practice, the stab of his sudden passing returned like clockwork. The vanishings of death left no words, no matter how familiar one had become with the phenomenon.

NB. Retrieved from the Drafts folder a fortnight and more later. In this vacant, contentless time it was hard to put pen to paper, or finger to screen.