Some More Poems
Melinda Gaughwin
Concrete Names
I walk the streets of
Redfern and see your name
etched in concrete.
You marked your
place-time in wet grey
so dense-soft until
it hardened.
There your name
and the memory of its etching
will remain until noise,
a jackhammer beat
Erases you.
Storm over Redfern
Storms roll over this
place like they’re
meant to be here.
Without rain, their cracks
and flashes crack and flash
but do not stop people in
their tracks or send them
ant-like scurrying into
houses that have housed
not few but many.
Giant paperbarks reach-lean
into these closely packed
abodes, standing strong
against the roll rumble of energy;
when the sky spits
the neighbourhood hums.
Houses
isn’t it funny how
we inhabit houses
rattling our living
through them
their every nook
and cranny bearing
witness to who we are
at particular points
in time
in time
we move on and
the house remains
inhabited again,
bearing witness.
