Until about three years ago I had been living for twenty years in a small beach-side suburb not a million miles away from Bondi Beach.

This poem is an attempt to pay recognition to a wonderful woman who has been living there on the beachfront for far longer than me. Everyone is touched by her. Respect.

Enigmatic twinkling and stylish
Describable only in sound bites
She gives and receives respect
Throughout the sleepy village

Generous open-hearted and kind
Bearing pain with stoic bravery
Shares her patronage with all
Tells their futures in espresso

Defiantly on the Jarmusch diet
Air and cigarettes and coffee
Fragile and powerful at once
Links us all to a receding past