The gnarled small-leafed Fig

The gnarled small-leafed Fig

Is bluff and proud

As wide as a carousel

It has stood its ground close to

Five hundred years

Buttressed against the wind

Before Cook and the Prisoners

Of His Majesty

Ever set their sails against it.

Waxen leaves turned bravely

Into a sun

Hot enough to melt a blacktop

A haven for lovers of wildlife

Spooners and wobbly drunks

Leaning precariously into the hollowed

Trunk

Inebriates enveloped in its mossy innards

A welcome respite to sleepy heads

Tucked up in fetal bliss

Until the morning when they would rise

To an early surprise

As old crows cawed

A thousand insects crawled

And the smell of damp wood

Invaded even their dull-witted senses.

The beer garden is too hungover

The hotel vaguely vacant

The shadow looming closer

As the great weight subsides

In precarious preparation

For an arboreal fall

It is to be removed before

The romance dies

The corner of Bay and Berrima

Will never recover

Even with the planting of a sapling

Five hundred years as a long time to wait

For another local landmark

To be rebirthed

Even a minor stealing bread

Was worthy of a scaffold