– Chris Bounds

I arrived in Sydney one strange summer,

seeing out the window of a jet

white sand passing under wings,

Leaving memories of autumn

like mounds of unraked leaves in middle England.

Facing the present for a first conscious time,

Seeking for ice-cream in Pitt Street

On a sleepy Sydney Sunday,

When the Sixties obstinately  refused to let Sydney go

Parading into the present.

Time ran the railway tracks out

Past western plains for a term,

Then drove us back, my father, mother, sister, me

To spend a lifetime between the mountains and the sea.

Looking back, my life seems somehow metaphorical,

Flying from a past and memories,

An existential migrant, waiting

For a  next  journey down to the white sands,

Some unknown journey

Midst the sound and swell of the sea.