Sydney Town Hall Tree

By Steve Denham

In my teens, Sydney’s flora
brushed the inner city and CBD
with green - but the first tree
I really ‘saw’ ...
 
curtsying to a zephyr at the
corner of Druit and George,
leaves fluttering ... sinewy sapling
boughs like limbs narrowing
and widening, swaying
 
diving, returning upright,
in rhythmic courante, as if
held in the arms of dance
partner unseen; was
 
truly a thing to behold …
alive and spry - how could
it be forty-four years ago?
 
‘More like forty-four seconds’
I whisper to myself sighting
that same tree today, munificent
sentinel of oxygen, height and shade …
companion loyal to that grand
old Victorian woman, the
Sydney Town Hall.
 
Now friend, deciduous ‘planatus’
- you too stand among Sydney’s
stalwart landmarks … her churches and
shopfronts whose stately decline
defies the eye; yes
 
heritage-listed facades,
monuments, roads, and footpaths ...
even old guard Box Elders, may opiate
the senses, suspend synapses
with longevity - but for mine
 
you will always be that
child who bedazzled, when
I had eyes to see.