Bank of the River
By John Muk Muk Burke
Commercial Bank
Fitzmaurice Street
Roman arches reminding us…………….
transmitting old English
sensibility
concerning solid grace.
Commands respect—a simulacrum of forebears in
another—distant,
unforgotten
half-remembered
place.
Fresh economy,
different setting,
getting rich on
Ancient Ground:
Ancient Ground
extravagant in plenty,
all the good,
a vault of no bounds,
antipodean Aladin’s cave
that freely gave
its all
to all.
You copied Rome—
a pagan pleasure palace
placed on Sacred Ground.
Greed was the creed;
imagined need
financed exotic seed,
a new breed of beast,
elegant streets,
our sacred meeting place of stones
bridged over on a base
of sacred bones.
Mabo and its aftermath
confirmed the permanence
of sturdy Roman banks
and bridges on lagoons
with
turtle,
yam,
sailed overhead
unseeing,
being roads
to saleyards,
golden fields of
wheat,
tobacco,
sugar cane,
beef and mutton.
Will it take
a further
forty thousand years
before you too
disappear?