scarlet stars

when we first came to live in South Australia
in the early 1970s
[yes, children, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth
and your mother was dodging lava puddles and errant meteors]
there was barely a tree to be found on the main street of Stirling
there was one brave oak
that marked the position of the local hamburger joint
[now a jewellery store]
and the deli next door
which some ambitious soul designated as the "Oak Tree Plaza"

Mount Barker Road was an expanse of bitumen
wide enough for a bullock cart to be turned in
[even though the chances of a bullock cart struggling up the hills from the plains were by now pretty slim]

so my Pa
who in those days was quite a bright chap
and coined phrases such as
"the driest state on the driest continent"
-  a snappy descriptor still applied to South Australia -
hit upon the notion of planting a few trees

due permissions were gathered
not without protest from the traders of the time who argued that it would take away parking spaces, people would be killed by running into [the trees], falling limbs would crush cars etc etc
Liquidambars were selected, not only for their glorious autumn colour but also as a fire safety measure...eucalypts are lovely trees but rather prone to explosive combustion and in the likely event the Mount Lofty Ranges are again consumed by fire 
having less flammable trees in the main street is probably a good thing

this winter it will be 40 years since we mucked in
with other hardy souls in the community
and helped plant some fifty trees
that now provide welcome shade in summer
scatter scarlet stars on the pavements in the fall
and whose branches trace delicate drawings in the mists
of our most chillsome season

might be time to gather a few leaves
and make a commemorative bundle
- i'll let you know how that goes