a landscape of gentle privacy

looking through old note books i found some words...maybe it's a poem:

she lay on her bed and watched the shadows

everyone was sleeping and she listened to her gentle privacy

through the flyscreen she could smell the hour

she could hear the memory of music travelling across the paddocks

all tomorrow's lawn mowers were waiting for their owners

she let that big feeling of nothingness get inside her. 

i wrote this remembering the feeling of summer nights in suburbia when i was growing up. well, it wasn't quite suburbia. it was a strange kind of half developed estate with empty paddocks and lots of space. the dirt was red and it was a bit like living in no man's land in between the city and the western suburbs. i liked it. there was a train line that ran right behind my house. when i got on the train to go to the city at the deserted station i felt like i was coming in from mars. everyone looked at me as if to say 'you live here?'

i think this landscape has really stayed with me.

rachel xx