Elisabeth Wentworth: Ivanhoe Park

Ivanhoe Park

Someone’s made a rose garden, the swings are plastic now

But oh, I remember the smell of the grass

As memory clicks over into childhood.

Ivanhoe, the land of the two Walters:

Scott scored the street names, Burley Griffin the design—

More than assisted by his wife Marion.

Garden suburb streetscapes and the medieval dreamings

Of a Regency mind.

No confusion for a child in that but the grown ups

Showed the strain.

The metal monkey bars are gone,

The ones I showed off on that fine day. One of the big kids,

Having dared me, rattled the bars as I danced across the top.

I fell off (sound of laughter) lost my wind and broke a wrist,

Attained brief celebrity when I arrived at school with a cast,

Then the crowd dispersed.

I see the Garden Club erected

A gazebo for the Bicentennial, why not? I suppose

It didn’t occur to them to make a more solemn memorial

In those heady days of our self-congratulation.

There’s a map of the roses and the gardener in me

Pays attention; only one Lorraine Lee, two of First Love

Though they look a bit sick—too much shade? Maybe so.

I am looping through time zones here, I see

My brother and me balancing on the oval’s white fence

Lashing our wooden swords through summer air,

Imagining we were winning the battles with the bullies

At Ivanhoe East. At least I could seek refuge

In the girls’ shelter shed but John was on his own.

I wish I could summon him now to see how much

I have grown.

The memories are sweet one side,

Like watermelon on a hot day, sandpaper the other.

Childhood’s not far beneath the skin for anyone.

We are like Russian dolls—each age

Stored inside others until the one

That does not pull apart,

The one we come

Down to on

Days like

This.

Elisabeth Wentworth