Tall houses built of ugly brick
Stand squeezed together in a row
Along the dull, suburban street
Where roaring trucks and tram-cars go
And people swinging shopper's bags
On hollow heels pass to and fro.
The elms beside the paving stones
Beside the gutters swept and clean,
Have put on sticky garnet buds
And whorls of pallid, chalky green;
And threads of jade and amber run
Where boughs as bare as bones have been.
Between the elms shop-windows show
Humdrum with shoes and soap and cakes,
But when the wind uncoils itself
From dusty little nooks and shakes
Upon the air a lovely gale
Of flurrying green and gauzy flakes.
The street takes on a magic look
Behind that airy dancing veil.
The tall, drab buildings move in mist,
Their shadowy walls rose-tinged and frail,
And all the people passing by
Are people in a fairy-tale.
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 November 1944
