What Goes Up

The frontier spirit hardy enough to
make it through the toughest landscapes, he thinks,
sticking another swastika to the Spitfire’s side.
Circling in and there’s his orange-
headed friend strapping himself to the top
of the city’s tower to get a better view
and sing the frontier spirit.
Look: on the plains the houses are wheel-less
wagon trains & in Broken Hill a couple
happily married for thirty-odd years
quietly crosses the road
while in Wollongong a small black dog races
across the street then scratches its ear.
All over Australia roads are traversed.
Fantastic...the Bodalla apothecary checks his
watch & locks the shop, a woman emerges glowing
from Bondi’s surf as a young man splashes
open a beer can a tennis ball is served.
An electrician’s van pulls out of a sunlit
driveway but jolts to a stop its back door
kicked open from the inside, a huge
white horse gallops out into the park
someone is trying not to dream.
7 o’clock dinner is on the table
getting cold framed by twilight
but we’re in the pub listening to all this
just when a yacht’s spinnaker billows
a tulip girl skates on an irrigation canal
Woof! up go the balloons & the Spitfire
flies out of the sun.