One hour from Dubbo

Ode to a strip of tarmac adjacent to a country road

There is almost nothing to commend
this isolated strip
of baking tarmac;
almost nothing
save the concrete slab
with six steel polls
of palest green
erected to support
the corrugated roof (the regulation green)
shading two
green benches
either side
of a green table
speckled with dry bird shit.

But it is here,
in this,
the most unlikely spot on Earth,
we find the poetry that matters:
silent when it needs to be
(or not)
it reads itself out loud
more as an act of confirmation
than a question
and more,
much more than words can say
or those same words upon the page could testify,
about the man and woman
we may be

travelling together
for a short time
on a long journey
beneath a burning sun in a blue sky
(interrupted helpfully
by regimented clouds)
we see,
paused by the roadside,
not the drab conformity
of an appropriately authorised
resting place
for weary travellers or needy smokers
but a space for dreamers
(not entirely lost) along the way.