Cynthia Rowe

Reflections

The night is chilly. We decide to dine in the club. Logs flare in the fireplace, and we are shown to a table alongside a bay window. We sip wine, order venison. The glass in the sash window is Victorian, handmade. Mirrored in the old glass, the chandeliers seem to go on forever, lighting up the street and giving it a festive air. Row upon row of ornate frosted globes stretch into the distance. Trams rattle past along Collins Street and my husband quips that explorer Robert O'Hara Burke met his end by dying of thirst, the only member of this club to do so. Laughing, I then wonder: Did Burke also admire these very same lustres before setting off on his ill-fated expedition to cross the Australian continent from south to north?

mid-winter dining...
through the window chandeliers
sway on tramlines