St Maurice's High School: Andrew Trower

"Confusion"

There is nothing – nobody,
No sound,
no features in the milieu,
no shadow to guide the eye,
In the vast expanse of a giant Salt Lake.

The air feels dry,
But it is neither warm,
nor cold,
An overcast sky,
bejewelled with billowing white cloud,
but failing to stand-out.
hangs heavy over the blank backdrop.

Far out on the horizon,
an imperfect dot ,
in the crystalline white world,
- a small island of dead plants,
dried rocks,
and unearthly baobab trees.
It stands with a haunted beauty,
In heartbreaking isolation.
A profound loneliness,
not passed in many years.


The mind tries to decipher the land,
To make sense of what little it can sap,
from the absence of feeling , and diversity,
but cannot.

Few creatures can dwell herein ,
Insects perhaps, but not much more,
In a land, free of water,
Striped of vegetation,
Suspended between this world and another,
fit to test the most resilient of cockroach.

A lone Chicken walks past.
placid and graceful, yet out of place,
Overly conspicuous;
Like a shark in a coy pond.

Going somewhere.

The overwhelming aroma of salted peanuts assails the head.
The mind is blank,
the senses, frantic,
but lost.

Nothing.


by Andrew Trower