Darkness Visible

Missing summer

Night comes so slowly these days. Creeping from the horizon, sunset blush to silver grey, the sky already pricked with stars.

I can hear the creek, that white noise of running water punctured by frogs and crickets and night things.

The cracked limbs of the cypress pines groan and as the wind whips through the giant eucalyptus I think for a moment that it might have started to rain.

It is impossible to imagine you here.

Amongst the ripped spare tyre, fence post and broken gate junk pile. The cracked window glass and pitted linoleum. What shoes would you wear in the long grass I have yet to mow?

I am at home with these things. The shed door that won’t stay closed, the weatherboard arching off the walls, the mower with the broken light and flat tyre.

These are problems I understand.

These are things that can be mended.