He rode the red dust roads as a kid
in a billycart built from a fruitbox
along with other kids like himself
who lived on hope and laughter—
pointing their capguns at galahs and crows
that circled peppercorn trees
in a sky as blue as an exotic bird's eggshell.

Time was a neverending road that ran
between Parkes and the rest of the world:
Orange, Bathurst, Lithgow—
the beautiful Blue Mountains
he remembered crossing once
in a train that blew smoke from its funnel.
Beyond them lay Sydney and its harbour.

Barefoot, head-down, pushing along
one of his playmates from the migrant camp
he’d laugh to see the billycart
go freewheeling down a path or hill
as others tried to pile in—squealing
as the wheels wobbled and they couldn’t stop
because it didn’t have a break.

Dust in the eyes, dust in the mouth,
none of it mattered to them—
just as long as they were all together
at the end of those long hot days
and there was a drink of cold cordial for them.
It didn’t matter who took the billycart home
because they'd all be back for it tomorrow.

Fifty years later none of it’s vanished
because the red dust roads of Parkes
run like blood in his veins:
past the remains of the migrant camp
fenced off with steel posts and barbed wire—
whose concrete foundation slabs
lie broken and bleaching in the sun:

where thistles have been poisoned
so the site resembles a wasteland,
where there’s no trace of the billycart
or the lives it carried—
but where the surrounding hills echo
with the cries of crows, galahs, children’s laughter
as fragile as an exotic bird’s eggshell.