by JUDE AQUILINA
Streets are lined with proud facades, window-eyed
clad in fluted iron, or stone patterned tin, raising bullnosed brows
and peaked caps to tourists and trucks – for time does not
weary them: the Trust keeps them corrugated.
Big brother mine shadows the town, shoulders the brunt of sunrise,
tries to hide its reputation of bullying, crushing blows
and deadly punches swung underground. Now its lapel sports
a badge of names and a row of faded roses like Flanders poppies.
Yet, the town’s rough surface is smoothed by artists working
the barren landscape, bending long light into outback dots,
carved rocks and Pro’s colour eruptions. Sunset softens their eyes
and, far from the maddening crowds, the artisans flourish.
History’s grace shows like a lace petticoat: ghost signs on old walls,
and mirrored pub windows with white and black terriers.
Tourists glide back in time at the Palace where long-skirted belles
and vested men would’ve swirled on a saw-dust Saturday night.
Museums of sepia photos: heat-hazed or flooded, sometimes a wink
from a schooner, an open-mouthed footie-win, or racetrack swim-through.
Once, a pub-crawl could be fatal – eighty-seven hotels
tempting marathon men till legs gave way on Argent Street.
.
Silver-edged, this town is a star on the map, shining
through deserted space; its iron-muscled men and dust-hardy women
sweep the ghost town label away, and breathe life into a hill
that can’t be broken; while the sleeping caterpillar mine train
waits till after dark to slide its wealth of minerals east.
– Broken Hill, NSW