Marmo Lane is a no frills track

A dead-end lane, so you must come back

It runs down from Boundary Hill Road

Not usually a place you’d decide to go

 

Two wheels wide

Dirt graded each side

A dead straight way

Til it turns driveway

When it heads hard right

Yet, it’s still a pretty sight

 

Sunnymeade gardens sit on the corner

Landscaped delights of crafted order

That extend out the back where we’d like to wander

In the non-public zones to enjoy and ponder

 

There’s a running rill beside you as you walk

It trickles and chatters its rain fuelled talk

The frogs croak and pobble bonk along the way

Then a kelpie pup joins us as if to say

You look like you’re going somewhere, can I come?

A walk needs a dog and I’m the one

He looks imploringly for a bit of a pat

Then he’s exploring with us off his own bat

He’s coming anyway tail up with eagerness

We hope they don’t miss him from his home address

 

Airborne crows caw in loping flight

A murder of crows black as night

A guardian wagtail without a catch

Scolded us for intruding onto his patch

Tiny feather balls flit alongside

To small and quick to be identified

Magpies carol new spring songs

Trying to outdo the currwaongs

 

We love the laneway’s primary features

And its occupant resident creatures

A peppermint crowned rise

Verdant pastures so nice

The views across to Wombat

Dotted with sheep so fat

Lambs that gambol happily

Hay fed cattle eating snappily

This winter’s grazing short for them

The farmer feeds again and again

 

There’s an unexpected extension

That makes you ask the question

What’s this fence lined bush

To be taken without rush

A corridor not mapped

Some walking that’s untapped!

 

The dog runs ahead investigating hollows

He sniffs at his reflection in mirror like shallows

He ducks into wombat holes under the bracken

And starts at new scents he then takes to tracking

There’s a sculpted work beyond the crest

The woven fibres of a discarded nest

There’s scat and more scat spread through the scrub

It’s a wildlife highway a wildlife hub

 

The wattle is blooming for the first of the season

Giving credit to deciding to walk this region

Bright sprays of flowers emerge from the greens

Illustrating the new life of spring to be seen

Superb displays mass in vivid yellow delight

Whole storeys of colour a gorgeous sight

Then above them tower mighty eucalypts

Some flowering as well out at the tips

The trees are so big you crane your neck to see

Halo edged tree tops lit by golden sunbeams

 

Along the way back the dog heads home

Friendliness and inquisitiveness through to the bone

The temperature is falling there’s a nip in the air

A good time to head home light the fire take a chair

As the day closes we return to the car

It wasn’t very long but we got so far

And now we know where more wild things are