As the wise woman said there was a path to the left which
Seemed to swallow any who strayed in that direction and I
Was bored enough to try being swallowed just once letting
Myself be tugged along over the railway line by joggers
Clearly I was no longer in Fitzroy Gardens with its seductive
Lovers of fish and pelican and fairies and founding fathers
I read I am near Jolimont Station I read I’m in Yarra Park
Being ignorant and innocent of East Melbourne generally
Especially this particular segment which seems to veer
Towards Richmond I resist making superficial commentary
Until it ripens upon research or in other words can we know
What constitutes the sky when we know nothing of what’s
Buried alive beneath our feet I might have felt a spot of rain
Let’s say it was yesterday and today the streets are wet
Mynahs chirrup at emerging worms but turtledoves say
Nothing I only hear human voices when they’re querulous
Crow humour or philosophy makes it through the walls in
These gardens there are less phone calls being made more
Dogs being introduced there seems no possibility of meeting
Someone new unless you have a creature on a lead and then
Anything can happen but I wanted to be more interested in
Trees of all ages than in single men of few there’s no division
Between the prosaic and the poetic when it comes to elms
Gums and figs however ruined by pollarding or possum
Consumption well now I am making myself informed
Through reading about the Park or making assumptions of
Correspondence between it and other parks nearby as you can
Deduce I am no longer walking past the cars of furtive
Couples their hands full of Maccas or making routes between
The clumps of human-canine assemblage but am rather rooted
Listening to lorikeets in light ecstatic mode some tweet some
Eat then they swap places I don’t hear anything against them