Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry

The road was lonely unpopular
shunned
scenic, but handsome not beautiful,
masculine with dull menace.
Now flexing its resistance
too long for a single day’s cycling
tent – an uneasy night
dawn, then gone – ASAP
almost there – but time for a break
food and water
an eruption of gravel as a car brakes urgently
Tense –
Until vision is convinced
an elderly woman is running across the road.
She and her friend peddled the same road, 60 years before
forest then and pumice and sand
balloon tires,
billy and frying pan tied to leather saddlebags
canvas tent and girl guide camping.
She smiles and laughs and talks
and talks and laughs and smiles
and talks.

She is on a journey –
retracing hers steps, chauffeured by her son
nostalgia as virtual reality – it has made her pilgrimage.

Friendship walked right onto centre stage
no waiting in the dressing room
or lurk of shadows, hoping to be invited.
It began like Beethoven’s fifth, instantly, confidently
and certain of posterity.
The octaves of the continuum
flippancy and profundity
philosophy and piss taking
intimacy and out loud shallowness.

Five years – a lifetime in the mid 20s
different hemispheres
time zones
countries
but always returning to the same fixed point
as a compass to North.

Then to fixed abode
in marriage
we would see more of each other, for sure.
Wrong. Less is the new more. Much less.
Partly circumstances and partly disapproval: wife of friend.
A decade half of polite insignificance
until
that most suburban of departures someone running off with someone you –
she with charismatic lover.

The DNA of mateship
stored, coiled, sequestered
springing life to Jurassic Park dimensions
back to Beethoven and confidence
back on centre stage
magical and uplifting – like the cat in the hat
and like that literary feline it came back.

He always smiled,
and nodded or waved –
not the languor of people passing
effort was involved,
as if he wanted to acknowledge me
and for me to know he had.

I asked if I knew him,
“ no.”
Still he continued – maybe mistaken identity
except there seemed no confusion.
A while later I asked again.
We were both at a supermarket front desk,
me for exchange
him, then a schoolboy, to collect employment application.
I wished him luck
he had not forgotten.