parking lot. They will either be removed or keel over in a storm.They do that -
keel over in a storm. They are grand, majestic, smell fragrant after a rain.
They are part of my childhood, my life.
When it is dry, they are dusty + can become Brobdingnagian torches from a tiny
spark. In early Summer they buzz with bees, making smokey-tasting honey
from their pom-poms of cream-coloured, stamen-burst flowers. Their strong
trunks shed long curls of grey bark; behind is left a virginal skin, smooth, white.
They are not rooted in this country. They are a problem, a declared weed.
They suck up more than their fair share of our precious water. Working for
Water has been removing them for years.
Eucalyptus grandis they are grandly named. Native to Australia, they settled
easily here. Stands of them can still be seen around old mine shafts, grown
for mine props.
Their uses are many. One fell over during an electric storm alongside the
swimming pool at a holiday resort when l was a child. It became our ship of
pirates. There was that smell of its oil put onto mosquito bites to ease the itch.
They made trips to Pretoria + back exciting as uprooted by the wind, they
blocked the avenue of trees that was 'the Old Pretoria-Johannesburg Road'.
Under what could speed-cops shade themselves waiting to trap the unwary
racers? How could smalltown folk entertain themselves on a Sunday afternoon,
if not sitting in their cars under the roadside Eucalipti to watch the passing
traffic? They shelter farm houses from the dust, heat, cold of the African
grasslands, or maybe just proclaim them in the vast emptiness.
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| FOOT BRIDGE |
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| GATE POST |
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| BOARD WALK these photographs are the copyright of f. d. rubin |
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