The Irises

 There is a curve in the Woolshed Road, just a slight sweeping bend and above it, elevated, there is the site of where Aaron Sherritt's hut was. It is a place that feels like it is out of this time, that when you clamber up and stand under the trees that you are there not here as if very few have stood there in the many years that have passed. You can just see if it is pointed out to you, that there was a house, there is a depression in the ground, a slight clearing. The gum trees overhead are all blackened from a bush fire several years back. The only remainder are the Irises, just peaking through the undergrowth, determined and hardy. A reminder of what was.


There is no sign
A curve in the road
Hollowed earth
Fire blackened gum trees
The only remainder

No one comes here
For it is not a place
They wish to remember
Unexplained tragedy
That reaches across lifetimes

Fist hammering wooden door
No words for him
But his eyes knew
And his death came
Despair and darkness followed

Not the end of it all
That was but days later
But here it ended
Friendship beyond salvage
Death the only path they had not trod

Their youth’s only memorial
The trees that stand guard
The irises that emerge
Undefeated, unbowed
To bloom for all