It was on the 19th of January 24, I was sitting on the cushioned seat under the veranda of your farm home. You were pottering about, stopping occasionally for a kiss. 

was battling an internal monologue, 

———

Joy is word I always return to, maybe it is joy that I feel 

I like it’s simplicity, three letters of ease to read

Euphoria is too much excitement, excitement isn’t befitting; bliss, bliss may be closer to feeling however joy feels most natural. 

This joy is what I feel seated here, behind a River Red Gum. 

Whenever I see Red River Gum, I think back to the last stanza of Beautiful Yuroke Red River Gum, Lisa Bellear, 1999

Red river gums are replaced
by plane trees from England
and still
    the survivors
            watch.

& I think about the London Plane, outside my old window, the small apartment on Rathdowne. I so loved that Plane tree, perennial, it brought my home colour in the warm months; it echoed my sorrow in the cooler. My new home frames, perfectly, a Palm. The palm feels more out of place than the plane as it echoes a sentiment so far from my fragmented identity, they feel ornamental in a way the plane trees echo a longing of ‘home’.

Suited to the climate of the antipodes, an exotic trope – look at me, see what I can cultivate – a symbol of prestige, wealth, power 

• consider the placement of palms in unlikely places, they provide no functional values, purely aesthetic, ornamental. A sign of nobility and great stature 

The plane trees are progressively being replaced, as we distance ourselves further from our colonial roots – foreign weeds.