Short pieces
SLOWLY
I was ten years old the first time I had a poem published. It appeared in the children’s section of an Adelaide Catholic newspaper and I was paid the grand sum of $1. My father held onto a clipping of it and gave it to me not long before he died. Dad’s favourite line was the one about him and the school fees.
SLOWLY
Slowly up the road
the wagon goes
Slowly the old man
touches his toes
Slowly the snail
slithers up the path
Slowly the children
have a bath
Slowly the clerk
sorts out his keys
Slowly my father
pays our fees
Slowly the kettle
boils on the stove
Slowly the children
walk through the cove
Slowly the tide
creeps from the sea
Slowly the school days
pass for me.
***
You can see traces of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series – there weren’t any coves where I grew up in inland South Australia, only in the books I was reading.
Credit:
Text and image © Lea McInerney
Published in Southern Cross circa 1970