Mar 12, 2022
Riverside by River
Chocolate water, home-thirsty travellers,
groaning engines, bouncing boats,
sprinting breeze, billowing shirts
pained buttocks, straightening backs
checking gunboats, pointed guns
throttled speed, surrendering hands;
higher, higher, even higher:
“Where to?” Where else but home?
Waving forests, ripening farms,
big, miming waves, dancing canoes,
curling creeks cuddled by loving creektowns,
orange lights cast on black skies,
like the sun stayed up late
to welcome sons from faraway lands.
But sunset so many and so late?
Ask the moonlight and discover imposter gas fires
You’re astronauts on water, floating, floating closer, closer to kin on the moon that is riverside, with the diesel-powered starlight struggling for a place in the dark ahead; and Barrister Smooth, in a muffled tone, tells you you’re home at last. Greeting folks, open-arms, welcome home.
