'Cantonment' by Josephine Clarke | States of Poetry WA - Series Two
– Dwerda Weelardinup
The whistle of the djidi-djidi on the army tank
slices the evening grey. Someone
is walking their dog. I am walking me
around this once defensive hill.
Gun House, Rifle Cottage. Cantonment.
Embers of a campfire through the scrub.
Quarried and tunnelled
– gradient constantly resettled.
At the Gunners’ Cottages,
new stair-rails gleam like epaulettes.
Reticulation runs on rolled lawn;
sand escapes across the footpath.
This hill is knotted with histories
the locals have long fought to keep alight.
What’s left is still
a glassy view of river and sea.
Cars sew a thread of lights across the Swan;
stop-start exhausts rumble at the red
beside an octopus with arms of rubber –
mural on the Navy Stores.
Djidi-djidi makes his
djidi-djidi sound. The lights turn
green; brake lights extinguish
one by one.
djidi-djidi – wagtail
Josephine Clarke