Sara Pronger
The leaf stays longer than the moment it falls.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, ‘The Last Leaf’
Still Green
The Lift
He wore purple velvet pants—
flared wide, festive,
like waratahs at Christmas.
Sideburns thick as mallee scrub.
A speaker low
with Lynyrd Skynyrd;
cicadas louder still—
that rhythmic, high-pitched whine,
like something strung too tight.
He lifted me above the cooch—
his arms a scaffolding
of sun and shadow.
The lawn, freshly shaved like a Sunday face,
breathed warm green sweetness.
A gum leaf turned in the breeze,
Fragile and tenacious –
I pointed.
He followed its slow spin,
smiling like he'd seen it first,
passing wonder between generations.
The Taste
His glass was full of beer and fizz,
icy with freezer-fog and beads of sweat.
A single gum leaf spun slowly inside,
bubbles clinging to its ribbed edge—
a wild leaf in man's glass.
Time paused—
the leaf still turning.
I reached for the foam,
dipped my fingers,
tasted the bitterness blooming on my tongue.
He watched, said nothing.
Let me learn it.
The esky clapped shut—
Fosters tinnies neck-deep in ice water.
Someone passed soft cubes of sweating cheese
and pickled onions on toothpicks,
garish colours,
vinegar bright.
The lamb sizzled, fat spitting on the barbecue,
rosemary smoke curling into the hedge.
Mock Orange, heavy with scent and memory
and everything we never said aloud
but somehow always knew.
His laugh boomed over the trellis,
woolly vest comfort scratchy under my cheek,
every joke loud enough
to carry past the lemon tree.
The Reach
Years later, that day returns
in the hush between things—
cicadas clinging to bark,
a glass fogged on the kitchen table,
the scent of lemon and cut grass
slipping through the flyscreen.
The lemon tree leans out back,
its trunk still bent where he tied the hose.
I crouch with my children,
press seedlings into soil.
Their small fingers, learning green.
Then—
a gum leaf drops from nowhere—
slow, steady,
settling into the lawn.
The wind moves.
