Curving into the Day

Up Windy Point road
branches lean over corners
capturing sky.

Road winds round hills
in the elbows nestle
cameos of the city.

Branches print on the sky
a chiaroscuro network
clouds keep their distance.

In my backyard, trowel scoops
into soil, loosens it – nourishment
bleeds down into earth.

Window laced with leaves
frames a neighbor’s world;
the same birds arc between.

Windy Point Road

I. Morning Fog

Soft cloud creeps closer, smudging the leaves
in a filmy whisk, punctuated by sudden headlights.
As cars nudge downhill, the curtain
draws slowly on the grey hillsides.

II. Morning Still

Break gently into the day, drive slowly
round the long curve, hugging the edge.
Each corner opens fanlike a cameo of bright city,
glimpses of sky framed with leaves.
The wintry sun leaning on roof tops glints.
To the far left a sliver of blue sea –
a final curve of pendulous space seduces
with the infinitely possible – I shuffle these away
in my mind’s compactus to release
during the likely shackles of the day.

III. Twilight – Returning Home

The road sloughs off like dry skin
shedding the day, bits left undone
broken communications, the unfaceable
buried now in a soft grey shroud of sky
not seen all day, unrolling at each curve.
Far to the right the darkening sea
is thinly bordered by lights that spark in me
the warmth of a home fire waiting.

Ros Schulz spent her childhood in the Barossa Valley and Murray Mallee, before settling in Adelaide. Along with raising a family of four, she was a high school teacher for 12 years in country South Australia and Adelaide, and for a further year in London; she also spent 15 years as a TAFE lecturer in Communication Studies. With both poetry and prose pieces in South Australian and interstate publications, Schulz has been a long-term member of Adelaide’s Friendly Street Poets, and regular contributor to its anthologies.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. A poetry book will be awarded to each contributor.