Southern Cross

This cold is crystalline, a

White crust caked on the car.

A distant silent echo of the

Stars, red earth settled in slumber.

The moon, she is gone for tonight

And the sun he is not yet appeared

The birds are only beginning to stir

And the headlight cones rake the scene.

Lone trees and scrambling plants,

A battered fence before wide open

Crops. Kangaroo flung at the speeding

Car in a death wish tired and unwound.

Fording layers of mist, the world

Disappears, enclosed in the secrecy of

The veil, even the birds lie still beyond

The tyre roar, the damp chill.

And in the mirror a russet glow

A shimmering, reddening, pulsating thing

Sitting squat, its weight pushing the trees to the

Earth, the fog aside in rent whispers.

I stop, stop the car, stop the rush,

Stop everything, dismount and stand in

The road that reaches out always and

Listen in the bird cacophony.

This is a moment that cannot he held

It comes and it goes as swift as it was

This moment like every other, but noted

For its colour, its sound, its flare.

And yet any other moment shares all

This, and perhaps more, and yet

Fades away into the cesspit of other

Moments draining away into the fertile soil.

I wish you good health, and I

Wish you the centre to stand upon,

Within, the witness to carry this

All and more, these treasures manifold.

For the sun, he is now risen

His light cast away the mysteries of the

Night and spread the blanket of the

Familiar. Life has returned to its usual ways.

And yet there remains a shard embedded,

That crystalline sliver working in deep,

Aching, a reminder of this and the rest

The moments that pile on the

Star flung night, sun horizon eve

That sing and their still light

Casts a faint shadow across your

Blind and on-rushing days.