Abandoned Farm in Northern Victoria
For decades, motor cars
have driven past in haste,
eyes not straying far
from the highway to where,
set back and obscured
by scrub,
an abandoned farm
is slowly succumbing to rot.
I catch a glimpse
of an old cart out front
and stop.
Nothing moves or makes a sound
as I approach on foot.
It's as if the spirits
of the place have paused
and have taken refuge in the quiet,
my trespass an interruption
to their daily haunt.
There is a farmhouse
and a number of sheds all
in a dilapidated state.
Rotted weatherboards
still hang onto
the farmhouse frame,
though a few have fallen off
where rusted nails
have given up their grip.
Corrugated iron sheets
replace window glass sealing in
secrets that have slept
in darkened rooms
for what now must be more
than fifty years.
I lift a corner and peer in.
Empty except for rubble
strewn floors
and sagging webs
as if still weighted
with captured dreams.
Whoever lived here must have
taken some pride in what they
carved out of the bush,
their labor fuelled by hope.
A family with kids perhaps.
There is a rope tied
to an old car tyre still strung
beneath a red gum
that would have served
as a swing. The remains
of a dolls pram
and a broken cricket bat
continue their decomposition
in one of sheds.
Their lives now have dissolved
into anonymity. In the privacy
of my own quiet, I call out
as would a visitor might have done
to announce their presence
at the farmhouse door.
No answer. I leave,
slowly dissolving
into my own anonymity.
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