Jacarandas In Bloom - Ian Lilburne

Strange to see a blooming Jacaranda on an overcast day
The soft violet vibrant against a grey sky
A violent clash of colour that shakes the seasons awry
The start of summer cast back to winter

Jacarandas in flower remind me of my father
His office in the city overlooked a garden
Where they bloomed abundantly every November

Sitting down at his desk he’d catch their colour
Then turning again to break his day
He’d steal a glimpse then swiftly steal away

I’ve always imagined the sight took him back
To his childhood on the farm
A breath of country air in his closed office day
The verdant memory of a less cluttered
Though equally complex time

But were there Jacarandas at Perenjori in the 1920s?
Had they migrated then from the Americas?
And if they had, had they reached that tiny town
A hundred miles from nowhere
On the edge of the great Australian emptiness?

I see him turning back to his ledger
Raising a hand to his temple to nut out the numbers
Adding them up again to see where they’d gone awry
The start of summer cast back to winter