When Tony Came Back

When Tony came back to Murwillumbah
visiting from his present home, Thailand,
decades after his hippy years here

all he wanted was our oldest café —
that downmarket place with the stale cakes
and the benches hard on your bottom.

We have alfresco dining now along every street,
cuisines both exotic and modern, French pastries
and very good coffee. But he craved nostalgia.

It used to be the only place in town, he said. (Long before
my time.) They’d come in from Nimbin, Kunghur or Uki
for non-organic cake and urban conversation.

That was when Byron Bay was a hamlet, and before
Tony packed up and left for Melbourne, disillusioned
with rural life. Now he lives in Bangkok, and is nostalgic.