ANZAC DAY 2020 [PART ONE] It wasn’t perfect. Who likes to wake before dawn? But I threw back the covers eventually, pulled on the warm red cape, found the small electric candle, and took my trusty phone to the top of our drive. Two other households in the

ANZAC DAY 2020

[PART ONE]

It wasn’t perfect.
Who likes to wake before dawn?
But I threw back the covers eventually,
pulled on the warm red cape,
found the small electric candle,
and took my trusty phone
to the top of our drive.

Two other households in the street
were awake, too, with
television services drifting faintly out.
One neighbour out with his own small light.
We didn’t need to greet each other.

Now, to find the carefully researched
three minute service. Thanks, Youtube.
Nope. Only the full thirty minute one.

I sighed and sat on our sandstone rocks
next to the letterbox.
Surely I could spare
thirty minutes once a year?

My neighbour’s car pulled out quietly.
We don’t talk much, but
I knew what he was doing,
and he saw me there. Enough.

White cockatoos tore up with sound
the peaceful lightening of the sky
as they were doing at the War
Memorial in Canberra,
drifting from the faint TVs.

The day’s first blowfly asserted
insect dominance,
followed by the love bite
of a sandfly on my hand.
Fair enough. I know my place.

I let the didgeridoo music
flow out and swirl around me
perched on my sandstone,
a Tibetan pendant of peace
hanging around my neck,
and thought of all the reasons
to be back in bed again.