January

Country ducks scatter into the gravel, all ditzy in the wake of wheat-laden road trains. Brings to my mind the kohl-eyed women who move in from desert tents to the crowded city to dance for ready cash, wrists strapped with defensive spikes and ancestral jewels. A dangerous life.
Peppermint trees swish little silver sickles in the afternoon light, buoyed by a chaotic sou-westerly that has been blowing for days.
The red flowering gum fires up early. The water is warmer than I've ever felt it, like blood.

And Bob's mulberry tree, the one he got demolished, to let the light in, just before he died, the one we bonfired at his living wake, has defiantly sprouted and shot to ten foot tall. Just like that. Great big fat, glossy, heart-shaped platters of leaves sway in this mad, mad wind.