Quilt run

A day of westerly gales,
fallen branches, leafage, willy-willies
clattering the car’s panels with grit.
White wavelets to the left of the causeway.
You in the passenger seat, sewing labels
on two improv art quilts, the finishing touch.
North of Bodalla, two trees down,
closing a lane, ours the one moving;
a big man in fluoro gear trotting to assess,
his ute flashing yellow lights.
People never think they’ll be the ones
on the news, in the car crushed by a tree.
Fires popping up on the app, at Tuross River,
Turlinjah, Milton, Yatte Yattah;
no sign when we pass through
but fire trucks hurrying north and south.
Stitching the pieces into the quilt top,
plus facing instead of binding,
had shrunk the measurements
but you’ve given notice of this.
Stopping at Burrill Lake we find
a branch has speared between panel and chassis,
like the thorn in the lion’s paw;
the wheel rubs when turned sharp left;
my mind worries at it for the rest of the drive.
Brown ruffled estuaries. The car shaken,
nudged by gusts so that it feels
risky to hold a keep-cup and drive.
Amid the flyover works before Nowra
a shop sign: Open despite the shit-show.
At number 435 on the back road
between Shoalhaven Heads and Berry, we park
on the nature strip, walk down the drive,
keeping a wary eye on the wild dance,
between ecstasy and torment, of the gums,
the blue bag of quilts in your hand.

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Kai Jensen was born in Philadelphia and emigrated to Aotearoa with his family when he was five. Kai has lived in Australia since 2004, and now writes on Djiringanj Yuin country, at Wallaga Lake on New South Wales’s Far South Coast.