The Scar-Tree of Wanneroo Poem by John Mateer

Near Lake Joondalup's untouchable burning whiteness,
midst the outer suburban industrial parks and contemporary pioneer homes,
on the dry grassy verge of Frederick Road, Wanneroo,
the old but still living tree that wasn't torn down in the early days
to be duckboards for the road heading north
through the scrubby sandplains shimmering in mind,
that wasn't bulldozed yesterday for another optimistic space,
bears scars where bark was prized off
for a coolamon or shield or piece of shelter.
This oldman-tree might elsewhere have been a hallowed thing,
garlanded, smoked-in with incense, imminent,
a series of photos of blue, cloudless sky. But here
this jarrah, fragmenting heart isn't one of many milestones
measuring out an historic silence, an empty hurt.
In mind, this almost forgotten memory, this in-grown wounding,
is not the last in a country of countless scar-trees.