Revelation in Troyes
- Revelation in Troyes
Saying goodbye at the train on his last visit to BrisbaneI remember my father fixing me with steely eyes, as if he wereabsorbing all detail, confirming each aspect,committing my every movement to his memory.With that stare one reserves for precious objects like parentor partner briefly seen before for ever being sealed away.
Now at this same age I say goodbyeto French friends I have known for half a lifetime,seen two generations pass, one colleague dying.We abandon the gentility of kissing cheeksand take to hugs, rocking back and forth,some kisses, too, for it is certain, this is the last timein this life that we will meet. Travelling aloneacross half the world is now for me too much a burden.
And so I stand under an umbrella besidethe covered market, deserted now, while they adjust their GPS,all wave, the car moves off, and I stand watchingflaming taillights being slowly extinguished by the rain.Then suddenly, the realization that I wear my father's steely stare,and I'm aware I am no longer of the exuberant agewhen all seems possible, but now have reachedthe age my options fast diminish, and darkness closes in.
Troyes, France, Sept. 2018 [End Page 60]
Ron Wilkins was educated at the universities of Melbourne, Cambridge, and Harvard and was, until recently, a chief research scientist at CSIRO Petroleum in Sydney. He has had poems published in Quadrant, Cordite Poetry Review, The Best Australian Poems, and other Australian and American journals. A collection of poems and drawings, Fistful of Dust, was published in 2012 (Delphian). This is his first appearance in Antipodes.
