Let the ones who are away know dear reader, report to them the news of the week from around here, from us, and all that …
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Tell them that they’re taking apart some shops on the High Street, dismantling the bricks and steel and stories down on our beautiful, curving street of streets.
Tell them that soon enough there’ll be a breach in the levee, a rupture in the facade on the river-side, and one day you and them will maybe walk through the hollow and see and feel the river, one day soon enough.
And let them know somehow dear reader that you’ve heard the news of the world, news from America. Tell them you know about Donald and Hilary, and how you like their names, but how that’s about it. Tell them that you’ve long known how human beings love a circus, how there’s always clowns and lions and how they always look kinda funny, but sad …
Report to the ones who are away from us dear reader that there’s life in the old street and town. Tell them how there’s still music and yarns and love found in the pubs.
Narrate the emergence of new cafes and shops, relate the return of South of the Border Mexican food and tell them that you’ll take them there one night soon, how you’ll eat and laugh.
And if they ask have you heard about the awful the goings-on elsewhere: in Syria and Iraq and about them poor buggers on the boats in the Mediterranean drowning like that, and how it’s a bloody mad world.
And maybe tell them that you know it is, how the mad stuff seems to be as relentless as the sea. Tell them that you’re still trying to live right and proper and believe in giving people a fair go, like how mum said we should and all that …
And if you can dear reader, relate to them how the wind was hot and wicked these past few days, tell them about the smoke in the sky from bright burning gum trees, tell them how we could all see and taste the beautiful, terrible smell of a bushfire, and that’s Australia and summer and all that …
Advise them that over ‘on the hill’, in East Maitland, they’re serving beer and Portuguese omelettes at the Gaol, that the Bitter and Twisted thing is still going strong, and how it’s better than what used to be there - misery, and broken lives and such …
Acquaint them dear reader with the tidings that the bats are back and living out the back of the the Court House. That they was seen swirling and spiralling above Hampton Court, above the turrets - and how it was a gothic and wondrous strange sight to see …
And tell them that we hope they’re home for Christmas, back on the soft river soil of here, of home.
And so it goes. Goodnight.
