Clearing the caravan park

wanderers thought they’d found
a small measure of permanence,
a compact suburbia.

brief lives behind plywood,
aluminium and canvas. A few weeks stay
blew out to years.

now the land’s being developed.
the itinerants reminded of who they are
have pulled up sticks and blown.

trees logged and sectioned
where they lay, snakes truncated,
spade-sliced.

and everywhere small
piles, the detritus
of lives.

jigsaw gyprock, plywood, distorted PVC pipe,
potplants all swept into haphazard mole-hills
by a dozer’s blade.

small squares of concrete aprons
pads for a cabin or footsteps
to keep mud out of the van.

every small concrete square
a demarcation of one
life.

where he had a quiet beer. where
they had sex. where
she wondered how she’d raise the kid alone.

now a giant hand’s wiped the pieces
from the chessboard.
only squares remain.

you could call it life’s rich tapestry only
no-one here was rich, the social fabric’s
fraying the warp is in our values.

best to clear out the people,
fell the necessary trees. quick!
before the greenies get organised!

then wait.



today all is silence.

the treelopper’s machinery
(plant without trace of irony)
stands idle.

dust blows in willy-willies,
exploring places once covered.

it’s all for the best.
it will only improve the suburb.
lift the values.

the landless are moved on, reminded
that their place is to have no place
and disappear like dust


[ more background here:] http://www.robwalkerpoet.co...