Famous Reporter # 11 - poetry, Brendan Ryan: 'Winter Drift'

BRENDAN RYAN

Winter Drift

1.

the creek swirls

with northern floodwaters

scrubbing tussock stump banks

the debris of other lives

passes beneath an old wood

bridge; fence palings, branches

plastic containers and a

weekend of cowshit!

earth that has given in coagulates with foam

around fallen trees

at uncertain levels

water inches into paddocks

meeting drains swollen by rainbursts

that have cut roads

and sent milk tankers

the long way round

this year's inland sea

larger than before

confines cattle to huddled stares

from a ridge smeared with hay

through splintered wood

I watch the creek eddy

closer and closer, rising

by the hour over banks

I stabbed eels on

swimming holes we bombed -

between milking. the day trembles

with the steam of fresh rain

light shifts into a patch of eucalypts

rooted in marsh

2

night sways with the balance of football post-mortems

casting local heroes

adrift in a crowded bar.

ten goals in the mud - and the gate-keeper forgets

his numb fingers as a farmer forgets his cows,

arguments are washed with beer

as smiles stretch inside

weather beaten faces

listening to radio detail

a town breathing calm

rain pocks a drifting brown sheet

submerging acres of autumn clover

we move to high ground

working tools, a producing herd

leaving ragged fence lines

to winter's hold

Brendan Ryan was born in 1963, grew up on a dairy farm in Victoria, and has lived on and off in Melbourne for the past ten years. He travelled overseas between '91 - '94, and is currently finishing an Associate Diploma in Professional Writing at R.M.I.T.