Early Summer Poem by Diana Rosser

Down a dusty dirt track,
behind the old football stadium
with its broken white washed wall
and rickety wooden stand
there lived a lady who squatted when
she washed her clothes with sun light soap
and grew top leaves and flowers.

These she wrapped in the same
newspaper she used to make
cones of freshly roasted peanuts.

She showed us,
all shorts, bare foot and wild sun,
how to fold swimming towels
that could be thrown
through the air like a rugby ball
and not unravel.

They kept our secret safe
when charging home
to roll it out,
mixed with tobacco
scrapped out from 'ten centies',
smoked in the guava tree,
sweet of fruit,
that grew in a garden
that lingers still
in dreams and the sunshine
of early summer.