AUTUMN IN CANTABILE
BREAKFAST
Soft gold
cheese
with the hint
of walnuts
and the suggestion
of chives.
Fresh baguettes
with the intimation
of morning
and the fresh
proposition
of the sun.
Coffee
the freshly brewed
clue of an aroma
tracing all the senses
to this
moment of pleasure.
MELBOURNE CUP
There’s an unmade sand track
off the only sealed section of the Dalkeith Road
​
where an untidy corner of rolled rusty wire
and mouldered fence posts
borders this long slow agistment
​
and an old frail horse droops
beneath the ancient dark of afternoon
and pepper tree shade
​
with the nosebag nuisance of flies
around its face
​
its tail the only movement
a fugue of repetition
in the seventh heat soaked day of summer
​
somewhere in an adjacent lean-to shed
a man in a sweat-stained and purple singlet
​
is tinkering with the mysterious minutiae
of a carburettor
​
and at this farthest distance from Flemington
a distorted crackling radio
marks this timeless moment
with the staccato of a racetrack reveille
​
the horse raises its slow head to
the sleepy summons
of something it has almost forgotten
​
the man puts down the impedimenta
in his fingers
wipes his hands on an oily rag
and a nation stops
​
for a start.