The Road from Coorain

One has only to set the date, buy the ticket, and let the earth, sun, and moon make their passages through the sky, until inexorable time carries us with it to the moment of parting.

Jill Ker Conway

A book on the shelf

The name, Jill Ker Conway,

Stirs a memory

A historian and writer

Born in Australia

Now living in America 

The Road from Coorain

An autobiography

A story of growing up in rural NSW

Barely surviving the drought 

Living in Sydney 

Post the second world war

The familiar names of 

Mosman, Waitara, and Pennant Hills 

The relief of reading stories

Of someone 

Who never felt at home in Australia

In Sydney 

Despite the beaches and bush 

The smell of eucalyptus and earth 

What it feels to board the plane

To leave 

Knowing that Australia will always

Be a part of who you are

But knowing that your life

Exists somewhere over the ocean

Relief and tears 

Connection with a woman 

Whom, despite an age gap

Of half a century,

Loves history and reading and learning

And discovery 

And finds a place

Beyond the continent 

Of her birth. 

The end.