I look back from the gate
A crow steals my breath
I stare at the beauty
For as long as I can take it
This is the day
Meant for goodbyes
Goodbye to our dreams
In the house that we shared
For all
Every wall of tongue and groove
Every corner
Every flower
Every bird
Before every storm
Every song that we have ever been shown
Now flown
This is the day
That we say goodbye
To the ironbark’s wrinkles
And the tallow wood
This is the day
We close the doors
A stranger arrives
With a bouquet of steroid geraniums
Propped up with fluorescent pipe cleaners
These are for our successors
She isn’t yours, just yet
All the notes from the kitchen
The speaking of the floorboards
Are still ours
It is time
To try something new
And leave this open country
All I want is openness, like anyone
A place to write
A place to be
A place surrounded by the swells of honeysuckle gums giving in to the breeze
The sound of the wind
Whipping clean clothes to a “crack”
The hissing and skipping of brown snakes
And echidnas bothered by a casio in the dark.
Today is the day
I hand the keys to a woman
With a country smoker’s smile
I wail in the car to the radio
Along the road back
Until I learn
A terrorist attack is as easy as 1, 2 , 3
When Tony Abbott announces
“All you need is
A knife, an iPhone and a victim”
And this shakes me off the spectrum
“Yes, I am back Brisbane”
Words and illustration Tylea Copyright 2016