Southbound

My mother would begin

To pack up and

We knew we were on the move

Father driving, listening

Hourly to the news
The ABC a beacon

As we glided on through time

My mother feeding

Us Cadburys milk chocolate

Content to watch the road

The concrete and the horizon

Widening always towards us

The bonnet swallowing time

As we drove the hours required

Our parents on a mission

We, behind, enjoying

The lark of another expedition

We had our own

Private jokes, we whispered them

Behind their stationary heads

Sometimes we would wrestle

Giggling or silent

To grapple with the boredom

But mostly we enjoyed

The spectacle of all worlds passing

The silences of the landscapes, closely coming, going

The sense of encapsulated

Movement, the hidden pact we had with time.

Today I drive on my own by satellite

Down the same silence of highway

The others have gone

To heaven, or estrangement

The same cantering hills

The same curve of dried lake

The same steep climb

Through scrub and stunted eucalyptus

The sudden rise, swooping toward

The storm’s horizon, the silence

Under the rippled belly of the sky

And coasting down

At last the last descent

An avenue of dancing trees

Until I regain “my destination”.

The end and the beginning

Of where I go to get to where I am.