There’s a strong sense of nostalgia and wistfulness in this week’s poems by SA writer Judy Dally, who has been published in the annual Friendly Street Reader for 25 consecutive years.
Homecoming
This late afternoon sun
recalls days past in a country garden:
a small piece of bushland
edged with agapanthus
and bordered by a creekbed.
Here, our dog dashed and scrambled
as he searched for his buried yellow ball,
unearthed it with his nose,
pushed it with dirty paws,
growled and gnawed it forward.
And all this a prelude
to his frenzied welcome
for my father’s homecoming car;
a greeting more joyful, more full of heart
than any my father ever received
from me.
My father on a January morning
hunches on the sea wall
in his checked shirt,
socks and sandals
hides behind sunglasses
devours the newspaper
does not watch his children
playing in the damp sand
ignores his wife
in her tight-buttoned cardigan
and floral frock.
refuses an ice cream.
casts a shadow.
Judy Dally has been a board member for the SA Writers’ Centre and a committee member and co-editor for the Friendly Street Poetry Group. Her last joint project with Friendly Street was its Reader No. 36, launched at Writers’ Week 2012.
Readers’ original and unpublished poems up to 30 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. A poetry book will be awarded to each contributor.
