Does Australia do green? Real green. 

Not the desiccated grey of eucalypts,

roots driving deep to suck the slightest 

droplet from the sand.

The plants thirst and burn.

Yellowed and scorched they endure.

Natives do best, adapted to parching, arid air.

Sun starved northern beauties fade and die.

We too, introduced species from

verdant, wet and bosky isles,

crave the lush, rich softness

of an English garden.

Homesick by Penelope Walker is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.