Planted in Common Ground by Diane Briggs (McFarlane)

I grew up in Courtney Street in the 1940's and 50's and have wonderful memories of that time. I wrote this poem one day after sitting at the Ampol service station looking across at the japonica behind the doctors surgery and realising that I had known it for 70 years.

Planted in Common Ground

I know you so well Japonica

You have been

growing there my whole life;

weaving your branches

through that wire fence;

poking your thorny blooms

out on to the footpath

catching on

my childhood cardigans;

flowering through

my blossoming

into adulthood;

overgrown

and neglected

through my years

of living

in other places.

But we are survivors

you and I,

and here we are

growing old together

within the comfortable familiarity

of the Lenah Valley landscape!