MEADOWS BARRACKS

Not sure of a terminal ‘e’
I type it in on a whim, and there
It is on a wikimap, neatly boxed in a square.
I pan the image expectantly.

The blanks surprise me, for the years
Have seemingly left those grounds
Untouched, all mottled greens and browns
Dotted with a few familiars.

I pick them off one by one. First,
The garrison church. All Saints, or so
It says, although at five I didn’t know
It, being still unversed

In such things. A vague derelict, a bit
Of a halfway point to school and back.
A blur of blotched grey and black
Is all I remember of it.

East of it the Barracks, another pile.
Abode of one who fancied my arm
And left her teeth marks like a charm.
A fleet of summer, verandah and tile.

Below, the dense blocks of the MH loom,
Slightly ominous, commanding the grid.
And somewhere amid
Other frames, beyond the mouse’s zoom

Must lie a home, now doubtless blent
With ghosts and such like, and air.
Barely recalled or loved, but where
A childhood, as someone said, was ‘unspent.’

***