this house i bought  in its fortieth year
has sheltered other lives
the people who sold
it to us                        for instance

my son’s room
belonged to the girlhood of a middle aged
woman because she dropped
in once to tell us how

she gazed through those levered windows
over the shed at the silver gum
that knew the paddock before the street
the bush before the paddock

and knows us all through turgor, touch and
light, currawong and native bee
flood upon flood       bark stripping
in September winds

sketching the inner shape
of things

—
Duncan Richardson is a writer of fiction, poetry, haiku, radio drama and educational texts. He teaches English as a Second Language, part time, in Brisbane, Australia.