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Reflections on a Road: Memories of Mum

Aside Kate@athousandbitsofpaper16 Comments

The road
near Barcaldine,
where the trees are tall and ancient—
older than fences,
certainly older than bitumen.

I thought of what the trees bear witness to.
Saw my mum
when she was young,
driving this road.
It would have been dirt back then,
and very long.

I heard her gently singing songs.
She had two sons,
red dust in their hair,
playing eye spy.
Back then.
Back there.

She wouldn’t have known
how fast it all goes,
how quickly boys
become men,
how the road becomes
a ribbon of remembering.

But these aren’t my memories.
And hers had flown
by the end.

Driving somewhere
especially long,
we come back to ourselves—
to the home we belong.

And all the thoughts that drift,
and all the thoughts that subside,
drift out the window
and blow outside.

I wonder what Mum was thinking
when she would drive.

I think of her
a lot.

#poetry/travelling

Note: Mum and Dad lived in Winton when they were first married and my two eldest brothers were born there. No aircon, a big simple house and dust storms . Mum driving all those same 2000km if not more to go where she was going, visit family – on dirt roads with two little boys. She was amazing.

16 thoughts on “Reflections on a Road: Memories of Mum”

  3. A great drive
    for the mind
    to drift out
    on a once dirt road
    rich with personal memory
    and the dust clouds of history *
    still settling o’er this land.
    ~
    Thanks for sharing this evocative piece, Kate; “older than bitumen”.

    DD

    * Barcaldine
    1891
    Shearers’ Strike

    Reply

    • Barcaldine is rich with history David. All these old towns are, the red dirt stains corrugated iron and asbestos sides show age, but the trees – just before you come into town from the east are big old Box and it got me to thinking of what they have seen, who they have seen. We are just a blip in the screen and that is a big part I think, of why I love nature. And one day we just join it.

      Reply

  5. I like that phrase ‘we come back to ourselves’. I don’t think of mum — or dad —much; I keep in contact with my sister. I see her on Mondays at the nursing home. She seems settled in there now —

    Reply

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