GASCOYNE: TWO ROADS
The Minilya Road: Night And Moon
I remember the night, I remember the
moon,
I remember the roos,
and the Minilya road:
‘stop!’ you
called, and I steered to the side,
stopped, and we tramped out into the night,
the
moon red-bellied, astride, riding, and the
grey-brown shadows that flooded with the
light massing, roos that thronged in soft-furred
mobs, that coursed abroad, foraging, moving
across,
through, over the acacia shrubland,
moving among the wattles, among banksias,
and the hakeas,
bending to sniff, to nibble,
chew, and clicking as they sought, and went,
as they fed: they
clicked and coughed their
footings, bearings, their owning, and going,
silvered by the
moon that pulled, quickening
them as it soldered them to the bosomed land:
‘do you
really have to go?’ I asked, and your
throat worked and your lips moved but you
made no sound,
only clutched at my hand:
yes, the season was dead, the sojourn done,
you had your
ticket and you had your journey,
and the time had come to turn,
to travel on:
and we took the road again, slowly, slowly,
for the shadows were all about
us, leaping,
and at the Minilya roadhouse, the coach driver
swallowed a burger, shook his
head: ‘worst
night I’ve ever known for bloody
roos,’ he said,
‘but ya can’t
stop, ya know, ya gotta keep
on going’, and then your face
at the door of the
coach glowing from the days
of sun, and the
tropical night, warm, turning cool as under
the
fluorescent lights, next to the Shell pumps,
a Pepsi in hand,
I watched as the Greyhound
blackened
towards the Nanutarra Roadhouse
and Onslow and Pannawonica and
on to Fortescue
River and to
Karratha and Roebourne and to
Hedland, to Pardoo, Bidyadanga,
and on, right
to the end, the bull
bar slobbered with blood:
and I pressed the pedal south, pressed
the pedal
until I could go no
further, the light too bald,
the route too straight: ‘you
all right, mate?’
a
bloke
asked at the backpackers’ in Geraldton:
‘I’ll
survive,’ I said, ‘I’ve come a long way:
but I’ll catch you later for a beer or two, yeah?’
and
that, that, that was then, and then, but the
way does
not end, and now, even now after so
many roads, moons, even now
when I see
every
month the moon rise up like your sun-filled
face, it pulls, and
it calls, and shadows crowd
about me coughing as I
remember the night,
as I remember the roos, as I remember that
shrubland
moon, and you, and the Minilya road