12 X 12 CANOPY WITH SIDES

By Barbara Moyle, Bass Coast Writers Group

Happy memories!

The hot kitchen smells of burning wood and roast meat. My red-faced grandmother is wearing her big black apron and is unusually, wearing short sleeves.

My energetic mother is happy because her family is here. Her cooking is
good, especially her apple pie.

A crowd of mostly men sit at the table; some are strangers. My father is at the head; his black curls are wet with sweat, his muscular arms suntanned and glowing. His hat with its tattered brim is on the back veranda where the panting dogs wait for work to start again.

A delicious smell comes from the paddock where a horse driven sweep scoops up the curing hay. It is driven to a heap and tipped by the driver as the struggling horse plods up and over.

My grandfather is forking-up hay to the men on the stack. They are finding low places and asking for ‘more here’ or moving it with their hay forks. It is hard, hot work under a blazing sun. Dust is flying and lips are caked and dry.

Everyone is helping; barefooted children are running, running with the dogs, following the horse and rake, following the horse and sweep or being called to the house to run with the afternoon tea of scones, Swiss Roll and billy tea. It is eaten in the paddock beside the haystack which is giving off heat as well as showers of grass seeds into the drinks. No shade, no radios, no newspapers and no reason to lounge.

Everyone is happy with the generous harvest; soon another stack grows.
At night by lantern light in the shed I watch my father stitching hessian bags to form a stack-cover. I am fascinated by the size of the bag needle and to see my father sewing.

Next year there is great excitement! The new labour saving wonder, the Grab Stacker is being assembled.

There are times that walk from you
Like some passing afternoon
Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon
And she chose a yard to burn
But the ground remembers her
Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms

There are things that drift away
Like our endless numbered days
Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made
And she's chosen to believe
In the hymns her mother sings
Sunday pulls its children from their piles of fallen leaves

There are sailing ships that pass
All our bodies in the grass
Springtime calls her children until she lets them go at last
And she's chosen where to be
Though she's lost her wedding ring
Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds

There are things we can't recall
Blind as night that finds us all
Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls
But my hands remember hers
Rolling around the shaded ferns
Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I'd never learned

There are names across the sea
Only now I do believe
Sometimes, with the window closed, she'll sit and think of me
But she'll mend his tattered clothes
And they'll kiss as if they know
A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone

-Passing Afternoon, Iron And Wine