1960s Campbelltown

by Dianne Bates

On the highway to Appin
skies bled on summer nights.
The road hummed to town,
trucks sped coal to the coast,
and south of main street
silent on a bridge,
Fisher’s Ghost.

Weekdays we rose at five
blowing balls of warmth into winter air,
and milking the cows
I sang at the bails,
‘Rose Marie, I love you.’

Summer was blowies in the cream,
butter that melted,
eggs from gasping hens.
Mrs Tietzel brought the mail,
Campbell the bread,
the days moved sideways.

Saturday was cricket
or Menangle trots,
swimming at the Woolwash
and the Queen Street shops.

Bill was cockatoo for SP bookies in pubs
and kids lined up at the picture house,
game girls rubbing cheeks with bristling boys.
Paspalum brushed the sky
and we forgot ourselves.

In the showground cemetery
beneath the shadow of Ruse
who sowed the first grain
we made rubbings on tombs;
JOHN MACARTHUR, ELIZABETH, R.I.P.

In Mawson Park
the band played Matilda,
someone scribbled his mind on toilet walls,
and, beyond trains that steamed to Sydney,
I dreamed a freedom of cities and age.

© Dianne Bates