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Edmund Prestwich

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Alexandra Park

Early postcard-photographs show clear, parade-like spaces.
Ladies ride in carriages, with parasols and gloves,
there's rowing on the river, there's a bathing house for swimmers,
cricketers stroll on the Oval and the Empire is at ease.
Many show the bandstand and the Jubilee Pavilion.
As a schoolboy in the sixties, crossing the park to College,
I loved their old world elegance, the onion domes and railings
that lay, between cricket lawn and opulent trees,
in a peace so green it was almost mystical.

Now, there's a weekly fair; we drift in a browsing crowd
through open air arcades of plane trees and blue sky.
There are awnings bright as flowerbeds, buttercup, pink, magenta,
and simple rugs on the grass; watches, power tools, beads,
Mandela T-shirts, duvet covers, oxhide drums and wooden rattles.
Tammy gossips over moonstone charms and Tarot cards, she lingers
by flimsy shirts and dresses in vivid New Age colours.
A man in a khaki bushsuit rolls out Sobantu rugs.

You can feel things moving here, old habits loosening fast;
the few Zulus I see, though shy, are forerunners of more.
In this place of historic beauty, traffic bathes in the grace
of grass and lovely trees. The sun lights peaceable faces.

 

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