Immigration Bridge

Built by men and women
across Lake Burley Griffin
long before concrete
was poured or a single bolt
driven through stainless steel –
and cables strung like tightropes
across air and water.

Whether they came as convicts,
exiles or free settlers
they brought their names
from every part of the world –
their dreams and hopes, fears,
the lives of their unborn children –
with their Old World possessions packed
into wooden trunks and suitcases.

Shades of green and gold
welcomed them like relatives
without saying a word.
They breathed the scent of eucalypts
and heard a bird’s laughing song.
Leaning over a ship’s rails
they waved to strangers below them.

Standing at the foot of a bridge
they were building
on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin
they remembered their families,
homelands, names that rang
as moments of discovery or loss –
all standing like explorers
beneath the Southern Cross.

Peter Skrzynecki 
© 2006