Distant city trapped between seas
Arafura and Timor vie for your beauty.
Verdant green grass and shrub
Trailing bougainvillea, flowering vines
Silver fronds, red of Lipstick palm
Lining streets near deserted in the noon day heat.
From cyclonic rubble, from first buildings
Now in ruin and preserved for memories sake
Has arisen a city of great beauty,
Peace, silence, colour, modernity
No longer a poor relative
To cities further down
A teeming heart within
The heart of this great land
We lie upon the grass, shaded by tree
To relieve the humid, heavy heat
Surrounding our bodies
And we gaze
Across the Arafura and Timor Seas.

Tim Alderman
(C) 2001