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Published in The
Herald Sun, Australia, 2011
Anzac Day at the
G
2011
Gallipoli.
France. Kokoda. A cold dawn.
Players
among the young who joined up
for
a bit of excitement. Poor exchange for
the
hard-baked earth, the mud they found,
a
jungle’s spiteful stings. A world gone mad.
Men
who played by Aussie Rules
came
back mad, blind, without their legs
or
hands if they came back at all.
I
was born to the sound of Nazi planes
and
bombs, in darkness now forgotten
in
a joy of cheering. For today I marched
singing
with the Magpie Army
here
to this oval field of play, vast and green,
to
mark loss; to remember. Malthouse’s last
Anzac.
My first. First Magpie game.
And
this year it is Easter. The bugle,
and
the Last Post sounds before Reveille,
at
the Shrine, now at the G.
And
then the soldiers leave. I’m
Level
1, right by the cheer squad,
waves
of voice like breakers on the shore -
and
here they come, bolts of energy
that
twist and duck and leap, stab-kick
and
stretch to send the Sherrin soaring
high
above our heads. Magpies and Bombers
black
and white and red, now marking,
now
colliding head to head and hip to hip,
now
side by side, and now confronting,
feet
thudding like steers across a prairie
stripped
of bush and tree; only the eight posts
for
target, and the high ranks of spectators
to
scream to the tune of Dolly Grey, Pies’
words
etched in sore throats, a tribal cry
and
tribal fire to make men race, to stretch,
to
power a winning kick, a winning run.
And
now it’s my voice screaming, YES!
and
NO and Go Harry! Wow Leon!
-
my life is marked; I caught the bug.
An
Anzac game, but like a Final. Just the day
to
march, remember, and, above all, to play.
Hilary
Elfick
published
in The Herald Sun, Australia
see
video of Hilary at the G |
last
update:
e-mail
Hilary
poetry favourites:
ASLEC-ANZ;
Some
Stories
(listen in to
"An Ordinary Storm")
ppf shop on-line...
Poem Card -
"Holly
Wreath"
(& in Christmas set)
shop
elsewhere
...
collections -
"An
Ordinary Storm"
(republished 2010), Oversteps Books;
"The
Third Mile"
(2008),
Guildford Poets Press;
"An
Ordinary Storm"
(2007),
University of Otago, Dunedin;
"Bush
Track"
and
"Harpoon the Breeze",
Guildford Poets
Press;
"Going Places - Poems and Tales",
"Unexpected
Spring",
"The Horse Might Sing",
Envoi;
"Let
Time Hold Its Breath",
Saint Publishing,
NZ;
joint -
"Attending
to the Fact - Staying with Dying",
Jessica Kingsley Publishers;
novel
-
"The Sleeping Warrior",
Cromwell
Publishers
Wedding
Gift Card-Book
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