Poem for the Day: Travel Mementos © Forthcoming in Poetry d'Amour 2014

Travel Mementos

               for Lucas North (1973-2013)

Wherever we went,

I brought one home,

a mug, teaspoon or book filled

with the memories of our travels.

Of all the fridge magnets

on the door, you said.

There's too many. What do you

want them for?

To recount where we’ve been, I said

what we did and saw.

I pointed to the Del Rio pelican

in the Hawkesbury scene.

Remember the kangaroos crowding

the golf course at dusk?

From the top of a kitchen shelf

I lifted a candle, dark as a pint of ale.

And look! These four magnets

mapped our circling through the mountains,

from Ocean Beach to Patonga, 

from Saratoga to Umina.

And here‘s the riverboat at Spencer,

our last stop before a treacherous climb,

those boggy edges slipping us

to my brother's Hunter Valley farm.

Left on your desk now, a curled notebook;

sodden rain caught us camping in November.

The bright glow of your frame survives, the

day you slipped an arm around the bronzed

Solomon Wiseman. A cap angled on his rigid

head, bringing the green back into your eyes.