out there through the curtains of the 7th floor, through the window… other side of the river .. a tall fluted monument in that park.  Time for a walk.  It’s raining ! Not much.. don’t worry.. down the lift and out by the dawn.. Hotel lobby is quiet at least… slip out the front door in the quiet at 5:30am but its cool warm cool. No cars.  Round past the Breakfast Creek and up the road, down again and under the breakfast creek bridge, across to the Newstead park, past the ancient Cunningham fig crawling root fingers down the slope.  There’s white Jasmine on the bike path with a faint smell of romance from the night before.. A single hidden Kigelia,

with its weighty pods just waiting to drop.  All the while the Brisbane river snakes past upstream in slow bends and boats so quiet you cannot hear a slithering as the tide comes in.

Finally, up there on the hill in the park, the American Australian monument appears. Placed in memory of WWII, mainly for Kokoda and the battle of the Coral Sea, commemorated with an eagle atop a column among the magpies and butcher birds — perched up in the trees – not sleeping perhaps — just above the signs saying ‘watch out’.  An so the eagle watches out over the Brisbane river and beyond. Standing sentinel like a standing stone, menhir and like something akin to the figures on Easter Island, looking out from the grounds of Newstead House, where the Americans camped during the war.

But enough then, the sun is coming up and like others, it’s time to get to work for the day.

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