many hands

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day three

we are ten hours from Brisbane
says one source    but another as the truck stops
halfway to Broken Hill    the sun went down
behind the white bridge and the slow Macquarie
took another meander in its stride
how did we miss the billiard ball Pluto
on the roadside that’s the ninth planet
in this drive-through solar system
where people make the difference?

LONGHAUL DRIVERS ARE SLEEPING
PLEASE CONSIDER THEM DO NOT USE
ROOM TOWELS OR FACE WASHERS
TO CLEAN WINDSHIELDS MIND YOUR HEAD
COMING UP AND GOING DOWN THE STAIRS

the crazy black and white bird
weep weep weeps somewhere in the trees
it’s crisp and a long shadow slants
across one corner of this page    the windscreen
needs a wipe    Karen reiterates our position
but she’s unreliable at this hour
so we take an independent route south
and east    fields of canola in flower
drive into our eyes and the plains are sprung
with morning luteal and lovely
  
tinka tinka tinka tinka
a teaspoon works its way across the room
at a hundred kilometres an hour
tinka tinka tinka tinka    furious tea
in the town on the old ten dollar note
Henry Lawson has a museum here
and a statue in the municipal gardens
he’s more famous than Lola
but they both grew up on goldfields
and knew how to stir up trouble
Henry lived in a North Sydney Coffee Palace
and drank at the Dawn and Dusk Club
did she?    we could ask the trainwreck
couple in the corner Miss Stirrabout
and Herschel Bypass but they’ve disappeared
tinka tinka tinka on the wind
and a vacuum cleaner sucking up heritage
under the verandas in Gulgong

Mudgee is preservation houses
Rylstone at 47 Louee Street the gallery
where she is shorthanded but keeping it together
Rose how much are your biscuits?
your rhubarb chutney your lime and ginger
marmalade?    there is coal smoke
on the air in Lithgow    no network reception
and six nuns eating icecreams
in the carpark at Macdonalds

we miss most of the scenic route
but make a perfect landing
at the corner of Wentworth and Hat Hill Road
the red painted house the cream picket
hello hello hello    the door opens
it’s Pam wondering where we’ve got to
and Jane out picking rhododendrons
teacups chutney marmalade and wine
begin the talk that catches its tail
and spins us round again    the gramma
is a pumpkin    the bird book shows us
willy wagtails red wattles white ibis
nankeen kestrels and magpie larks

©Michele Leggott