from Dancing in Odessa
by Ilya Kaminsky
We lived North of the future…
were born there
into summer twilight evenings;
cold winter nights, frost and snow
underlay our present,
hard-to-ignore cuckoo call,
hazy bluebell woods, deciduous trees,
gold autumn Cotswold stone,
that way of thinking...
yet we have lived here
more years than there,
accept another language,
red earth, drought-ridden summers,
bask in sea/beach clarity,
hard-to-ignore antipodean flora/fauna,
gum trees you can see the sky through,
red callistemon, parakeet, kookaburra...
we will not go back.
— Sally Clarke
