Lament for a Town.(Poem)

 
LAMENT FOR A TOWN 
 
Once its wide streets were herring-boned 
with utes and Holdens and Fords 
parked in the pepper-tree shade. 
Not now. Traffic's more likely to be 
a boy on a bike and a dog. Furniture's 
stored in the cinema, the butcher's shop 
is boarded up and the window of Ladies' Fashions 
is full of newspapers and dead flies. 
Some hopefuls want to make a museum 
in the Bank of New South Wales, 
but who would pay their dollar to get in, 
now they've moved the highway? 
 
Father Mick drives over on Sundays 
for mass at Our Lady of Victories. 
The Anglican church was closed this year. 
The rectory's a ruin, abandoned long ago 
but there's interest in the cemetery next door. 
Visitors read names, murmur ...