'That was the syllabus'
says the young man late of the HSC
'history as memory'

He only says
'history as memory'
and I see

that childhood town of dairy farms
and irrigation channels,
a town bound to twice a day milking

and visited by steam trains.
The balsa wood glider appears
as if still in my hand.

We coveted them
in the Newsagents
and saved to buy them on our weekly trips

Assembled, we fired them
with a lakky band and watched them swoop
around the cow paddocks for a while
Swallows flitting past
not knowing that they were already
vanishing,

about 3pm on Friday the 23rd