So finally you went

to Melbourne,

jostled across Bass Strait

aboard The Pateena.

Presumptuous to count

on a return you wrote

to grandson Jack.

And so it was.You died

at 171 Victoria Parade,

suburb of Fitzroy. At noon,

October twenty-first,

a century ago.

No hour-long flights,

no ship equipped

to take a body back

to Hobart. No-one

chipping BelovedWife

on Charles's stone.

You're nowhere I

could wish for you,

like windswept Bruny Point,

the yellow orchids

below the lighthouse,

feet pointing to the snowy South,

or that stranded granite

Leviathan at Stanley, where

the night above the jetties

has such stars in it,

or Cradle Mountain

where people go to photograph

reflections in Dove Lake,

or then perhaps Green's Beach

among the frisky wallabies,

lumbering wombats, where dear Kaye

forgot the bread and almost set

on fire the picnic table, best of all

the walled, scented garden

of Albion House — books, pictures, music,

fine wines and food — that you (yes, you)

got me invited to.

Last chance, and something of

an off-chance, even if it bites the dust,

leaves ashes in the mouth, I mean

for me to pay respects.

Sunday, cemetery office shut,

no hope of documentary help,

map to show me your last bit

of colonising. Blow flies, blow flies

everywhere, nostrils, mouth. And so

I scuff cindery paths

round battered stones, hop

over rusted rails in Death's

neglected territory, the older

graves that say This is the mark

we came to make. But you

I cannot stumble on in time.

You're in here somewhere, not

talking, not anything. I head out past

new immigrant-Italian polished marble.

Who says Magnificence is dead?

Men, women down on knees,

washing, buffing dry, meticulous

with flowers, coddling their dead

as if just love might keep them near.

I tried my best. But time's a bully.

There are clouds to cut, Louisa Anne.