Balcony

Dusk. The freeway’s haze;
Green Australian gum trees
Soak up the spectrum.

Sparrows in the elms:
Fans dressed for a football match
Scale autumn’s ladder.

Australian icon:
Southern Cross windmill, rusted
By the passing cars.

Siamese cats scan
The corrugated iron
Roof for a sparrow.

Old kiln-works chimney,
You burn the earth into walls
Made of white moon bricks.

Red light makes silence.
A tram turns under the moon.
Green light makes more noise.

TV antenna
picking up beams like a glass
filled with week-old wine.

When the rosellas fly
Over my apartment block,
I love the country.

An art gallery.
A Mercedes parked outside.
I’m missing something.

A gigantic moon
Drowns out the traffic’s tide.
Hear my balcony.

First published in Ginyu (Troubadour), Japan, 2004.