Have not been here for... oh,  

twenty years. 

                      St. Charles  

where memories Min Min* flit 

and ghost holograms like light sabres - 

            Leah up.  

There,  

beneath the octogenarian olive -  

Julie reciting, chanting: 'In Defence of the Bush'* 

and I correcting,  

then replying with Lawson's: 'Up the Country'. 

Title not in any way meant to be derogatory, 

just unfortunate. 

Bemused, I 

stretch yearning-yawning fingers through 

her basil-green-midriff, past 

those ugly box pleated St. Trinian's-style smocks, 

we were too young  

to think of hitching up, 

yet. 

Over there we manic-skipped, 

long rope of any kind buying instant friendship - 

'Aaaaaall in by... January, February...' the chanting recedes, 

distorts.... nastily.... fades.... a trip meant  

asphalt knees  

and Sister Rita's unsympathetic-orange-antiseptic daub, 

spitefully applied 

like a slapped on coat of paint.  

'There's the bell. Now scat! Get to class!' 

Beneath the weeping gums - 

I see they still believe 

in encouraging kiddy sociality vis-a-vis 

paralleled, slatted benches, 

though no longer painted jolly in jellybean colours, 

these are sustainably demure, 

allowed to silver with time - a subtle life lesson. 

'Please Mr Crocodile,' we played, leap 

Ing            from            one bench          to  

the other - 'Can I cross your golden river?'  

'Not unless you've got the colour....' 

Marianne took instant offence,  

for I had not 

the colour blue - shoved me, so crocodile-ferocious -  

'Go back, dirty cheat!' that I stumbled,  

fell awkward. 

Six stitches that time.  

More to come. 

More to come. 

The old school grounds look sanitised somehow, 

sun opportunities minimised, 

rough and tumble prohibited, I'm not  

sure, exactly 

what I think of it, ahhhh, but there's the bell, 

time for good little musers  

to go  

to church.  

Funny, I almost wrote - hell. 

*Min Min light is the name given to an unusual light phenomenon. Stories about the lights can be found in Aboriginal myths pre-dating western settlement of the region and have since become part of wider Australian folklore.[1] Indigenous Australians hold that the number of sightings has increased alongside the increasing ingression of Europeans into the region.[1] According to folklore, the lights sometimes follow or approached people and have disappeared when fired upon, only to reappear later on. (Wikipedia) 

* Banjo Peterson