 |
 |
Yes, I've been in tune with this on a road trip to and from Canberra - about 825 kms over all. Lots of such markings - but none for the many wallabies and 'roos knocked down by haulage trucks. Sad sight after sad site. Except one site where a wallaby was indeed squashed with a hind leg sticking grotesquely up in to the air, forming a shadowy tent between her thighs, drying beside the road before a barbed wire fence which marked the edge of a massive paddock of grey stubble after harvest, and standing proudly on a small hill in the distance, a pure black cow, alone in this wide open pastoral plain, surveying her holdings to the horizons, with only the occasional gum tree to break the landscape. This I saw passing at 110kms per hour, Jethro Tull playing an ironic sound track of English folkrock in our air conditioned Japanese car. On 11 February 2015 at 08:06, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Thanks, Millicent. I hadn't considered family pets. Maybe there are not as > many human road deaths as I surmised. > > It's the rapid withering that gets to me. And the openness, I suppose. > Some sort of naked need to declare, out there by the road where all rushes > by, that some will never rush again. > > Bill > > > > On 11 Feb 2015, at 7:50 am, Millicent Borges Accardi < > [log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > > I like this one Bill-- especially > > > > > > "But such bouquets fall mourn-short." > > > > > > > > "Emblems continue to accumulate > > at the site of last breath, of sudden > > rupture. There's a reaching in these > > jumbled cairns." > > > > > > In the canyon where I live, there are many road "offerings," where a > family pet was killed, pedestrians, bicyclists. What happens in Topanga is, > after a time, the flowers and candles disappear but eerie white crosses > remain, dotting the windy mountain road. Most unmarked. > > > > > > > > > > Millicent > > > > > > > > > > Kale Soup for the Soul > > > > > > http://www.MillicentBorgesAccardi.com > > > > @TopangaHippie on Twitter > > > > Água mole em pedra dura tanto dá até que fura > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> > > To: POETRYETC <[log in to unmask]> > > Sent: Tue, Feb 10, 2015 12:44 pm > > Subject: On the Road > > > > > > Who loads these offerings > > by roadside death spots? > > Not relatives surely; friends, > > you assume, who have already > > placed flowers on the coffin, in > > chapel, at graveside or urn wall. > > > > But such bouquets fall mourn-short. > > A soul interrupted en route seems now > > to require temporal marking. See those > > propped white crosses tilting, golden > > framed pictures catching the sun's glint, > > printed pages flapping in car-breeze, > > > > oversized stuffed toys nuzzling CDs, > > in loose piles, footy scarves, trophies. > > Emblems continue to accumulate > > at the site of last breath, of sudden > > rupture. There's a reaching in these > > jumbled cairns. Institutions can't cut it. > > > > Even when colours fade, animals > > desecrate, the vacuum remains. > > Not just the absence of the departed, > > but some gapingness the dead > > leave in all of the rest of us, > > for whom the road winds on. > > > > > > > -- Andrew http://hispirits.blogspot.com/ 'Undercover of Lightness' http://walleahpress.com.au/recent-publications.html 'Shikibu Shuffle' http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/new-from-aboveground-press-shikibu.html