Galah (April)

Young men in first dinner suits and untidy bowties, young women in over-the-top gowns – soon Gala Night became Galah Night. Such grey formality pink champagne lightened into teenage tomfoolery. Once I slept under the stars in a paddock in New South Wales. In the morning hundreds of galahs were in the air, on the ground, and along the road where I hitched before breakfast. They only come to Melbourne in those numbers during drought. I watch them in the April parks, hopping about for seed. They’re Wildean in grey frockcoats and rose waistcoats, likely to make galahs of us all.