DUBBO BRIDGE
dubbo caravan park/ where we played knock 'n' run on
caravan windows/ got sprung & bundled into uncle
kevin's van/ for a late tea of special sauce/ fried
onions, tomato, mushrooms & garlic on hot toast/ with
margarine/ which we ate/ in our football beanies/
greasy faced/ & outside/ huge highway lights/ along
the road heading west from dubbo/
& big thundering
trucks/ roaring across the bridge of ice/ green
stretched canvas/ icy to the touch/ & thick knotted
ropes that made fingers ache/ hard metal studs/
glinting in the 24 hour glare of service stations/
unknown nocturnal loads/ big/ tied down/ secured
for the huge straight roads/ & open spaces journeying
inland/
big trucks shifting into gear/ from early
morning truck rest stops/ like mechanical caterpillars
in fumes & explosions of backfire/ into another
wintry day/ of cloudless horizons/ roadside kangaroos/
stiff/ upturned/ & lost tyre rubber/ curled towards
the white line of bitumen/ like fingers gripping it/
the truck monstrosity/ taking off/
becoming tiny as
the road becomes longer/ as the landscape spreads
further/ like an unrolling of carpet/ withered at
the deep red tip/ of a western plains autumn/ trucks
whistle & dogs barking/ louder in the morning/ all
night long/ in kevin's caravan/ i hear trucks blowing
their horns/ & orange lights of the bridge/ slip
past eyelids/ & are stored in dreams beneath my
pillow/
tomorrow/ a sky of antarctic blue/ clouds
blowing across it/ in snowy shapes/ & faces of
imagined beings/ we will drive through tiny towns/
naromine, coolabah, nevertire/ past towering wheat
storage mills/ crumbling sheds/ broken down
machinery/ & twists of brown river before flood/
& miles of train track running parallel with miles
of bitumen/ caaring crows from roadside carcass/ &
wild green budgerygahs/ shooting through tall dry
grasses/ long distance flyers parallel to the road/
all heading westwards/
& telegraph poles/ becoming
larger & faster/ as we pass/ i count them until
drowsy/ in the back of our '63 holden/ curled up i
imagine/ a truckie's cabin/ on chilly nights/ the
pale apricot light of western new south wales skies/
huge & snap frozen/ into mauve dusks & winter frosts/
the whining long distance of trucks/ over dubbo
caravan park bridge/ as they thunder towards nyngan/
cobar, bourke, broken hill, trangie, brewarrina &
wilcannia/ & onwards to dawn in south australia &
further/ huge trucks with mack on the front frozen
soild/
& tiny lights along the bridge twinkle in
icy currents of air/ i linger outside the caravan/
i imagine roads leading out of dubbo/ the big wide
chill of inland/ & dark mountain lights dotting &
shimmering along the great dividing range/ until
they drop into space/ off the frozen edge of mount
victoria |
