my town on the riverbank

By Adam Gibson

running by the riverbank of our rivertown
i remember the punt across to the other side
and the men at the pub on Melbourne Cup Day
and the women on the balconies under the shade of trees

and the second son of someone's mum
was killed in another war fought overseas
and on Anzac Day we stood around the memorial
with our shoes polished and clean and
each day at assembly we sang oh God please save our Queen

and our dreams all spoke American and
we dreamt of American cars
and a show came to town
where the two men played a banjo and a clarinet and
nothing else besides

and the river was brown and moved to the sea
and thunderstorms broke things apart and branches off the trees
and we ran along the riverbank and
the people from the city came past and acted like we didn't exist

they moved along like headlight highway ghosts and
we breathed our words in close against the flickering lights
and held our candles and hoped that they were wrong and
we'd survive and the world would ignite as
we watched the broad brushstrokes of the night

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notes on poem:. just a strange idea I had, partly inspired by the area around Grafton and Ulmarra in northern NSW, Australia.
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