By the dry sand
Leni Shilton (Southern Cross University, Australia)
On Monday I drive past a boy
as he sits on a rock
overlooking the river of still sand.
His schoolbooks piled behind him,
he doesn’t look up,
without seeing his face
I know he is crying.
I don’t stop and talk to him.
But I know by the way he wipes his face
with the back of his hand
I must leave him
alone.
I think of him though;
of the moment
of me driving past
and not stopping –
and now,
in my mind
he is still there,
looking over the unmoving dry sand,
wiping tears from his face.
Leni Shilton grew up in Papua New Guinea and Melbourne and has lived in Central Australia for many years where she has worked as a lecturer at Batchelor Institute coordinating the Creative Writing program, a prison educator, a bush nurse and a remote health educator. Leni’s poetry has been published widely in journals and anthologies. She is currently undertaking a PhD in Creative Writing through Southern Cross University writing a verse novel on Central Australian historical figure Bertha Strehlow.
