Beulah Road: Home Poem by M.L. Emmett

Mildew flowers are blooming
on the ceiling
sugar ants sashay across the floor
the walls are stretching
and drawing apart.

If you lean hard against the door frame
on a quiet night
after a summer shower
you'll hear the munching, crunching jaws
of white ants feasting.


The gutterings are choked with gum
leaves sticky eucalyptus oil.
Cockroaches come in under the door
to skitter and dance
on the kitchen floor.

Corners of the rooms are draped
with dense and dusty webs
that thrill
with steady pulse and scrape
of the fan.

Huntsmen and Daddy Long Legs
divvy up the territory
as they shelter from the rain.


Roots from the Lilly Pilly and the gums
the Birches and the Bay
criss-cross their underground networks
regularly disrupting pipes
that must be churned and scoured
by plumbers
on Sundays.


At sunset,
when the garden is sighing from the day
quiet and still
brown snakes come out of the ivy wall
to loll in the shade
sprayed ever-so lightly
by the spinning hose.