Leaving Melbourne, the highway curves slowly past estates

shoaling into paddocks and foothills,

as if half-inclined to take one last look back

at the hazy city. 

If you leave early enough,

just at that bend,

in a line to the distance the road would have followed if it hadn’t turned away,

 

your eye will be drawn to the side of a large shed

shining in the dawn; so radiant

that this blank, yellow square is its own light source,

as if the very point

from which the morning is unfurling.

 

As the day’s distances begin

and the dozing passengers give you time to think

about another set of appointments kept, opportunities missed,

this shape offers just enough distraction

to blunt that retinue’s claim until

it falls behind

with the B-double convoys dispersing

into the fat quarters of the interior.

 

For a moment held by a line of sight, that immanent light

seems to offer something more than the kilometres to come

of dishevelled bottlebrush, cable railings

squaring the gravel verge

adolescent cliques of skewed gum saplings

 

the brightness of that wall is like a page

            behind which a torch is shining

revealing a page’s opalescent swash,

a trace of the crush and scrape that brings paper out of water

as though something of a sapling’s leap toward

the sun is echoed in light’s flecks and fibres

as if the writing across its face

is the least important thing.

​

First Prize, Minds Shine Bright Light and Shadow competition, Feb 2025