James Collis

I am not a poet and never been published but would like to share these words relating to the passing on my father a few years ago from an aggressive cancer. He was an owner operator in Wagga running a small trucking firm in the livestock industry for many years and I worked with him as a young man as his offsider, driver and mechanic. He was well known as a reputable carrier and less for the hundreds of paintings he produced of the country he travelled and loved. He appeared in a feature in the publication Trucking Life for his painting not long before he died and last year we held a retrospective of his work at the regional gallery.

I don't presume this to be a poem but more an attempt to put to words loss, resilience and resignation. I imagined his body as the vehicle and the load as the illness.

Untitled

Did you slip away early,

or was it late at night,

Bleary eyed you left us peaceful in our sleep,

for the last haul,

the longest.

No more high beam lights to stab at the back of your eyes,

or fleeting moments of rest on steering wheel arms,

fighting against exhaustion,

blinking,

tapping,

reminding yourself of...yourself.

Muscles sprung tight,

creaking against the weight,

you venture out into the darkness,

creaking against the weight,

familiar sounds and light become muted around you.

creaking against the weight,

Aura like street lights,

creaking against the weight,

beacons in the fog,

creaking against the weight,

become less frequent now.

creaking against the weight,

You shift into top gear,

creaking against the weight,

gently as always,

creaking against the weight,

wind down the window,

creaking against the weight,

take a breath...and drive on.