‘Immigrants’: a poem from Kate Fagan’s Song in the Grass

to Bob Fagan

If my Grandad had seen the future 
he would have said, small acts of care 
are worth leaving. He’d have painted 
imitation grain on window casing 
and planted Crystal Palace lobelia. 
My bride stunned us in faux fur, 
he’d have said—I didn’t expect her 
to outlive me by sixteen years.
He’d float like spume on Jervis Bay 
and under casuarinas at Sanctuary 
Point and say, now I know paradise. 
He’d make tea for Mum and Dad 
before breakfast, Tang at lunch
and shepherd’s pie on a Monday. 
He’d enlist to fight fascism and stand
straight backed. He’d cross the Suez 
on the Castel Felice, watch comedy, 
say he wanted a daughter like me. 
He’d bounce on his heels and organise 
mints at the phone table. He’d hear 
pneumonia coming and live until 
Cathy Freeman won gold. He’d walk 
on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin 
and say, not everyone will love
this town. He’d shoe horses
at Sezincote, flood an orange orchard,
lug for the MSO, cry in a dorm
at Fisherman’s Bend. He’d be stoically 
sentimental, gravely proud of his son. 
He’d kiss my children and clutch 
their shoulders, too modest to say
my brother’s boy resembled him. 
He’d tinker in sheds, hum over 
weekend newspapers, buy bacon
at Vincentia butcher so Nanna
could fry us holiday sandwiches.
If my Grandad had seen the future
he would have said, at Monte Cassino 
some things were lost forever. He might 
take back that year but no others.

‘Immigrants’, a poem by Kate Fagan from Song in the Grass (2024).