Song

I have been thinking about the little girl who died by Darebin Creek. So have others. There is a poster advertising a newspaper that mentions her on my route to work. I hate this. There have been a couple of articles in The Age about why someone would kill their 15 month old daughter. One is a short google on some instances over the past few years and a few stats. The other is someone, like me, who knows the area. But there have been a few murders in the suburb. There are kids riding trail bikes along the muddy track beside “my” creek to the point where the police had an accident with a cyclist while looking out for them on a quad bike. More than once I’ve seen four wheel drive vehicles trundling along where there is no road, almost no path in places. Where when the water rises, eels cross. It’s a magical place. It has been damaged.

SONG

All the little creatures coming out again, can you see?
So quiet, if you listen very carefully that’s the sea!
Swing low sweet child Sanaya and don’t feel sad on a rainy day
The earth will make a cradle boat and and little feet will find the way.

Dawn seeps over she who murdered
My autumn fuzz trampled by horse cops is on you
Paths and lights and burn-back and standard council park monstrosity
Mother –
All on you.
A red plastic trolley, police tape fastened
Pile of rain-gravid bears in flowers
Touch my brow, my lip, I’m following
Two doors floating seaward –
Would equal scorch marks around scooter bodies
Flatscreen backs
White goods brown
Luggage
Deckchairs
Armchairs
Bikes
Bottles
Blankets
More trolleys, resting on their side –
Only floating doors lead elsewhere
A better place than a mud stream bed
And they are not on you.

How can that be?

Did she cry, did she run, did you just do for her?
So awful so bloody hard to escape statistics
Talk
Taken seriously until the next time
Last in Heidelberg it was a couple
Before a row over noise
Missing teenagers go rhythmically
Every street’s got a house
Unhappy block
Derelict town
Homeless district
Failed little state
But never blue tree, twitchy crane
Not echidna overdosed nor murder ant
Never even vicious magpie, evil crow
Psycho tiger snake, no genocidal bee.
Mothers and fathers defending
Survive in sacrifice and fight and yes exposure
Never simply turn, no
Not quite like this, among the reeds
Not even in eternal drizzle
One of us: can I really not get it?
What we struggle with is the nature which does not murder
We shall tame this wasteland and filling with light add darkness
Which does not perish except generationally
And that I cannot comprehend.

Swing low Sanaya under blossoms
Your daddy didn’t know and your mummy’s in gaol
Swing low under breezes and birdies
I’ll take you for a walk in the wild with a puppy
Swing low by the rushing bubbly happy rain
All the little creatures sing your lullaby, sweet.
All the little creatures singing baby to sleep.
Go to the ocean now, go.