Coral Hull: Poetry: Uncollected Poems: No Return

I MACKENZIE KNIGHT I A CHILD OF WRATH A GOD OF LOVE I FALLEN ANGELS EXPOSED I

CORAL HULL: UNCOLLECTED POEMS
NO RETURN

1
Okay, time's up. Dad said, "I had nothing and now even me dog's dead."
"Nature doesn't care," I said. "... only small portions of it."
He looked out the window at his last day. It was blue and glorious.
But it had this distance to it. It was like some old town that we couldn't find.
Then my father's hollow eyes, shone like all the stars at Nevertire.
While he was burnt from the cancer treatment, those fiery orbs burnt
their pathways of light, through the ether of all consciousness,
and that burnt-out look remained in his eyes, like years of drought
or that long stretch home, with no hope about it, for its revival.
There was once a perfect sky, where we sought comfort like childhood,
as we turned, back to the stars we were made from. But at this rate
the rain would have to touch every part of that land, not once,
but again and again, to revive its shattered crust. How long must we
be touched and for how often, until we are replenished? Are ya ready?

2
After the cancer treatment he faltered, grew giddy and forgot who I was.
Then this very old dying man, suddenly grabbed me and kissed my temple.
It was something that had never occurred before, like rain at Whitecliffs.
My spirits were temporarily lifted, like rising clouds in search of stability.
But in the end, it was a place of dreams, that we would never belong to.

We had all failed in our plans at escape. Dad said, "I fly in my dreams."
I said, "You better cling to what you know." He agreed, "nothing's out there.
I've been there in my head. I've been there until it got too deep.
But I love all that stuff about the stars." It's too late in the day for a future.
He loved Powerball too; but he never did win it. Even his bad luck ran out.

3
While he was dying in Dubbo, his dog Patch-Em-Up waited by the gate.
Her heart grew frail inside her broad chest, but her mind did not give up.
She was a reminder of his absence and he of her abandonment.
The clean cut lawns and vegetable patch, the fibro flat and white shed,
it all started beating like the land she came from, as the hours returned her into it.
Every so often, the world around her reared up and took her beat away.
Dim-eyed. She was failing every so often. She was practicing for death.
But she didn't leave my father, until he got back from the hospital.
"She was a good girl," he said, an ache in his throat. I left her by that gate.
I said, "I know, but you were dying yourself. You couldn't help it." It's ok, dad.
"But I left her," his eyes welling up with tears, "me dog's dead, my life's over -
You were lost. I lost everything. She was lost. I even lost her." But we all lose.

4
You fucked up and now the cancer's got a grip on you. You fucked up, dad.
But the world's fucked (it's really fucked) and we all fuck up sooner or later.

5
My father and his dog left town. They walked to the point of no return.
They never came this way again. But the sun was suddenly too bright to tell.
So far as I know, he's back out bush, on a riverbank by The River Darling.
Patch is with him, in the red clay of the land's memory. It's all he's got.

He did the dishes before he left and closed the gate to the fibro shack.
He lived in the garage of the house next door. It was owned by the mayor.
the driveway leading right up to his bedroom window where it stopped, abruptly.
He walked out and closed the town behind him.
Good-bye, Brewarrina. He left Patch-Em-Up dog buried out at Red Hill.
He was beyond the point of no return and he never went back.
This time it was me who watched him leave. A few dumb teardrops in the dust.
There wasn't much he left behind. There wasn't much there to begin with.

    

This website is part of my personal testimony that has been guided by The Holy Spirit and written in Jesus' name.

I Home I Biography I Testimony I Articles I Poetry I Prose I Artwork I Photography I Notebook I