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Famous Reporter 25

Currajah

 

BRENDAN RYAN

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Gravel Stories

He was turning into his gateway

when he was struck from behind.

 

Fog had stolen the road

barbed wire couldn’t hold back the quiet

 

or the farmer

trying to believe what the fog revealed:

 

his brother dead and a neighbour

shaking against the side of a car.

 

Road accidents, suicides, careless deaths

a district catches its breath

 

and memories trail a family’s name:

his son getting through the fence with a shotgun

 

her parents cleaned up by a milk tanker.

Talk around the kitchen table

 

slows down to a stare out the window

a shaking of the head, questions.

 

They sat a stubby on the grave

of a footballer everybody knew

 

then drank the afternoon to his name.

Somewhere near the Drive-in

 

they rolled and she flew

like a story itching to be told.

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Brendan Ryan lives in the city but grew up on a dairy farm at Panmure in Western Victoria. He currently lives in Melbourne where he teaches in a secondary college. In 2001 he received an Emerging Writer's grant from the Australia Council.  He recently became a father for the first time, and hopes to move back to the country to live in 2003.