Marching Ground

This place knows of rituals and Opa's awkward march. Our nimble bodies pass through the parting of long grass, as it rubs against wind and sound rushes into our ears. I sigh in the first breath of wilderness.

Here is another type of sea, one that is riddled with hard packed soil and my brother's footsteps. Stomping as hard as we can, we yell out one, two, three, not knowing the meaning of upright. This is how we soldier on, scaring the snakes with our masquerade.

Further up on the hill where the grass is thinner there is a house, dug deep into the earth.  I wonder how it has stood for so long, bearing the weight of weather, the bricks the colour of our tin roof back in Balmain. Here is a place many distances from home, but my home lives within my mother and father and my brother.  

Inside Oma and my own mother take up station at the stove. Gisela, my mother calls her. But she is my Oma and she is clean-skinned, fair and round. In that image, she is the second most beautiful woman I see. The first is my mother, paired long legs and bob blonde hair, the fob chain silver on her neck. She lingers, as though trying to slip and sip into the culture of cooking; the heavy warmth of rabbit stew sticks to the air. Cooling on the bench is the sickly flat cheesecake; the taste is still prominent, when I close my eyes. I know not to reach my fingers up to touch the baking tin.

Opa's brothers are here, Herbert and Wally. They are pillars, all of the same height. Their marches know things my eyes will never see; the war is hidden in their bodies, memories and shrapnel regret of the Nazi war. But they are happy and laughing. The house is a constant ear for their German chatter. They speak English only when we all gather at the table to eat. They fluidly glide back and forth to English, when they do their mouths form carefully around the 'foreign' words.


At night the grass is an instrument, a rain stick. It wraps itself around the house, but we are safely tucked in the back room. My mother folds woollen quilts over us, we keep our slippers on. My eyelids are heavy and my body is running into sleep.

It is only women that occupy the house in the morning, and my brother is not yet a man. The men are out fishing, but they will be back mid-morning. By that time Lunch will be out, a spread of cold meats and cheese. Then, we will be on an adventure, marching wide legged through the grass.