On turning away

by PETER ROBERTS 

The great rivers of East Gippsland
pass by like an avenue of honour.
Nicholson, Mitchell, Tambo, Snowy, Bemm
and more. It is their determination we admire
most – to cut through rock and clay,
taking no backward step as they surge
to the Gippsland Lakes and Southern Ocean. 

They brim with brown trout,
estuary perch, dusky flathead,
black bream and eels. Bird song soars
in the eddies, bends and backwaters.
Green shoots thrive on blackened trunks
by weed ridden banks. The ebb tide
pushes out – then the flood.
 

On turning away, we focus on the white
lines leading us on our intended route.
Soon we will arrive, and the great rivers may
become, if we permit them, a totem
showing where we have come from
is one way to make sense
of all that has transpired.