Driving into the future
Driving west with the future gloriously uncertainwe stopped for a photo near the Twelve Apostlesand later her alone, leaping weightlessover the river at Apollo Bay.
I remember us walking the moon-shapedcurve of the long beach, the motel roomfilled with the sound of the sea, thinkingthis was the end of something, or the beginning.
Next morning, I hauled her oversized photos insideand waited by the printing presses,solid and impenetrable as the metal sea,trying to imagine her living here.
We took the inland way home,left the long blue fringe behind us,in the back of the car, her artrolled up in rumbling cardboard tubes.
Prom bird
Wren is just genusBlue descriptiveSuperb superfluous
Refuge Cove
Above the sea in slanted light,the earth before me bluntedby an impassable shadow,the bay and an unbroken sea of calmconverge, two arms taperingto distance and swirls of yellow sandseparating bay from stillness,calm from swirling chaos, lines of windand swell pushing slowly past and away.
Behind, the cliffs are already in shadowBut the sun falls on this calm place,the sun falls still on these untroubled waters.
New Camping
Canvas has been replaced bybranded versions of nylonbut the architecture remains,poles soaring beyond fine fly-wire meshto an impossible apex,a mountaineering space backlitlike stained glass, risingfrom pegged earthto awkward crescendo,an airy cathedralcradling the silver tubingof a flickering Maglite torch.
Fronts
At some time, over central Australiawe met air that had been disturbed,and we rocked back and forth, gently at firstthen more strongly, a pitching with the sensethat we were falling or bucking, or ridinga wave of air that, had sometime in the past,passed over a mountain range or tangleditself with another system, a trough that spiralledacross a continent, until we met itand felt the history of the airin the movement of our bodiesthat were jostled gently, or firmlythrough the passage of this stiff metal shellcrossing over into a new front.Flying over Australia
The interior,cresselated brownfeatureless, like the bottom of the sea,ridge, brown-splatteredwith the shadows of clouds.It is the colour of ore: brown, orange,stained with the accumulated mineralsof millennia.
Later on, far norththe scattered clouds, whitebelow us, throwing down hundredsof cool imaginary lakes.
Warrick Wynne is a Melbourne poet and teacher who has been published widely in Australia. He has three published books of poetry.
Sea image from Shutterstock