the colour of healing it’s a thick silence, unrehearsed and accidental, with the house suddenly empty. rare, in a home like this – grand piano, two ‘cellos, violin, guitar – three musicians and a dog, Bach Chaconnes, Chopin Preludes and high pitched whines joining ‘cello duets has me thinking though, about the repositories of silence because it’s been here and waiting, in the 45 degrees of stairwell, the angle providing harbour, a balloon of silence the colour of healing
the tides you would say that it was tidal, all to do with the tides. yes, you would say that and I would look away, look West we’re doing things in halves today, you would say that, a day in halves, only was there ever a day that was whole? have you finished writing about tomorrow? you said that. no I said, haven’t finished with the yesterdays I’m driving now, driving and thinking, away, and thriving. I could say that, could say that the boys the boys, circled, in jeans, shirts untucked, beers and banter, loosening, back slapping, real estate prices, golf tales, the boys, who’s round? unbuttoning, stubbies and schooners, un- finishing, Wednesday after- nooning, the boys, in this pranged up moment of shared and shed untruths and bruises, the boys, beering, untangling, cruising, jaunty and blooming, the boys, in the ambered half light, the boys
the road the road scars right, across the palm of land, tumbling, dwindling, a groove, a history, a way in, worn and healed slick the road, oil on linen, bitumen on peat, with all its gradations of shadow, bruise to smear to brush the road, cloud above scuffed and tugged by wind, rain sifting down, the ‘haar’ they call it here, cold breath of wet the road, its dip and sway, blur of scrub, the urge, glimpse of roof, swerve, the early dark, the entrance
Kevin Gillam is a Western Australian writer with three books of poetry published.
Beer drinking image by Shutterstock.