Ivanhoe, NSW
Unchecked coarse grass and dock and clover sprout between flags of the swimming-pool steps, well on the way to greening them over; there's a bench, upturned, by the pool inside, while gum-nuts litter dry earth underneath the deserted playground's swing and slide.
The chanced-upon settlement, sculpture-still, lies, as if stunned, in the outback glare, and so eerily silent it seems surreal, where the only life in the brick-kiln heat baking each iron-roofed home in its plot behind dusty trees in the empty street as we stretch our limbs and fidget round are the irresolute shadow-pools we cast on the washed-out khaki-coloured ground; and, scuffed by some wind's breath off the plain, and sand-plume unfurls in slow motion, like smoke, to hover, half-billow, then subside again to the press of heat and the sun-bruised still with a sort of shrug at its own lack of will.
Simon Curtis
Previous page
