Southern Land

by Helen Loughlin

I’m dreaming of driving over the Forth Road Bridge with you,
and Curly Wurly panting and laughing on the back seat. I see
the snow over Fife and the long road ahead looking to Sutherland.
Oh Sutherland, your cold recesses, your sad battles, your defeated
Romans and the cold, deep innards of your lochs and your lands
and reaching Scots Pines. Where I saw your Pictish symbol stones,
the Migdale Hoard, and mighty Suilven rising from your still rock.
Crossing the Firths along the East coast to get to you sustain me here.

Now as I walk the streets of Camperdown and Newtown these hot,
stolen streets and land shadowed by the Moreton Bay Figs
buckling the pavements, negotiating the waves of the buttress roots
only slightly defacing the paths and, in places, defining them, looking for
a way onwards. I love these trees and their march along this East coast
where the tale of the route begins over and over and seems never to end.

Helen Loughlin is a poet living in Sydney. Her work has been published in journals including Southerly and Hermes and she's edited a number of magazines including Phoenix Review. She's currently working on her first collection, City of the Dead.