The Bedford Truck
Knees bent, ankles locked between railings;
warped pales sheathed in dew.
The receding sun still stencilled berms.
Apple trees strung in lines
like children holding hands home from school.
Branches hung heavy in deep;
by roadside, arms up and stripped.
Bristling legs scissor glistening grass;
eight gauge stretched under high arch,
fence post rubbed smooth.
We fall into step,
let right hand find left,
follow arrow-like tractor tracks
behind rear-guard Pencil Pines.
Giant! - The hand needed to wield a fifteen-metre pencil; steady, to have drawn the driveway’s slowly meeting tracks. Left to us: smudged thicket shades; right below, the creek a flowing technique.
At grove-end lay the Bedford,
doors wedged – always just thrown open.
Oil-ingrained foaming seats;
split dashboard; column shift stuck in fourth.
The windscreen etched
with constellations.
Our torchlight Morse code.
