Rowe, Noel

University of Sydney, Department of English,

The University of Sydney: Sydney eScholarship Journals online

Perhaps after all he hasn't gone (a note to my mother) NOEL ROWE* perhaps after all he hasn't gone so far away but is still coming home through the swamp oaks and the broad leafed tea trees heading towards the dairy he knows isn't there any more perhaps he's hoping to hear his father speaking through the cracked cement to have again the touch and breath of animals running his finger like the wind along the fence to feel its worried grain noticing beneath the strong and almost everlasting fig tree the cows sitting black shoulders forward like nuns at prayer perhaps he's almost at the house by now in the garden glad to see geraniums red and mauve he planted still alive at the corner of the back verandah the Japanese fuchsia he took from his mother's place and on the tank stand the few swamp orchids that are left from those he gave you though they don't seem to flower these days and just before coming in he'll check the pumpkin vine yes this year they'll be ready in time then pausing in the kitchen long enough to leave a shadow on the table where every morning he knows you cup your sorrows to remember pastry warm and tasting like your palm he'll climb with night into the hollow space beside you and lie there perhaps * Noel Rowe teaches Australian Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Sydney. 96 

Perhaps after all he hasn't gone (a note to my mother)

https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/ART/article/download/5597/6266

Perhaps after all he hasn't gone (a note to my mother)

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The University of Sydney: Sydney eScholarship Journals online