This Moment

Found poem: excerpts from journal entry, 4 February 2001. 

Shaped into poetry 5 May 2015.

To Andrew

this moment:

accompanying him 
to lunch and a movie 
for his birthday. 
He is 72.

He drives along

this winding gravel road,

so narrow

we squeeze to the edge

when cars come the other way.

Relief! Both causeways

are high and dry —

only yesterday

still partly under water.

But the sun is shining.

‘Look!’ I say.

I am thankful

for the ferns of the rainforest,

the sun glancing,

the bends that slow the car,

the smell of leaves.

In a chaos

of flood and danger,

branches down,
time seeming warped,

when we crash over debris

and the car stinks of wet –

in such a space,

these green ferns,

this golden light

soften and soothe

the air, the mood. 

We enter the highway.

Not at all wet here.

What happened

to all the water?

You’d never know; 
so normal.

A syncopated rhythm

plays on the car radio.

‘When the sun shines

on the mountain’

sings the singer.

I realise the man

is singing of freedom

no-one can take away.

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