Ashburton (April)

The only house where we ever drank ourselves under the table. David’s, with its squeaky gate and diamond windows. Was it April, August? Nobody noticed. Telephones plugged into walls. Ring for pizza. Fairport Convention and T-Rex 33and1/3rpm. So long, whole hours, since night before became morning after. Adolescent high-nerved senses grew memories of autumnal streets, neater and neater nature strips. Thud of indifferent football. Cool pool leaf floated on aqua. Liquidambars fell in heaps, circles of yellow, Saturday sodden earth smell. The dairy clanked, wineshop clinked. The week ahead was vague insistences: Russian Revolution homework. Yes, literally, under the table.

Apocalypse (April)

It is a lovely morning for the End of the World. Two Italian nonnas sit in sunlight, leaflet stand nearby, handing Witness to commuters at the railway station. We are not amused, however, by our screens’ increasing division, famine, disease, war, the changing conditions making life on our Earth intolerable. April is as good a time as any to take a deep breath and return to the nasty bits in the Patmos book. We’re never quite sure if John’s words intend comforting reassurance or are meant to scare us half to death. The body wants tomorrow, the mind seeks hope.

Alphington (April)

Fog this morning. Old tin warehouses, above grassy drop to Darebin Creek, are shrouded like an engraving. Wind meters keep the weather in check, spinning clicking down today. Cotoneaster dark red amidst dark green. Their long streets of verandahed houses elm-shaded, paid historians and school councillors powerwalk footpaths. Dayworkers in beanies and scarves, their plastic and pearls, wait for the train. Broken crust river gums slide into lowered cloud. April fog dampens rooftops, cartops. The Paper Mill is falling down, falling down. Dan Murphy stands sober as a judge. Golf course is no longer lonely. Heidelberg Road is fairly heavy.