Safe For A Week In Hobart Town Poem by Danny Draper

Long taxiing snaking to East
Into the straight, west and swiftly away
Drawing into the nowhere gas of a glorious Sydney blue summers day
A long arc to East then South
Familiar landmarks drifting away
Botany Bay, Port Hacking,
Royal National Park
Little Marley, Big Marley
Ragged coast groomed with
thin sand nails, pale orange and white
Headlands as commas punctuate,
Tidal lakes further south,
Lake Illawarra,
Pincer projection of Jervis Bay, then
George's Basin
And the islands in Batemans Bay
Cloud shadows feign more, the
Island headland at Broulee,
Moruya Heads, the little air port strip
Cloud converging, coast absorbing
Bega and Merimbula onto Victoria
Uniform cloud cover separates earth,
West horizon, grey white, slightly arcs
Wrapping and concealing our finite home
Turbulence reminds of impermanence
Somewhere below
Bass Strait, the Ferneaux Group,
St. Helens, Bicheno and Wine Glass Bay
Yachts still racing the Sydney to Hobart make their way
'Seat belts on! ', descent begins
We glide on ethereal clouds
A few bumps mark our road
The Church in the head phones
Clouds white-out everything
'Prepare for landing! '
Land ho! Once again only vaguely familiar
The lower clouds thin,
Fields and forests lakes and rain
Exquisite mountains rise and ring
Wind buffets the jet as it would any bird
Our faint plane shadow races over a hill
As we change our approach
And come around again
Skill and technology brought us down,
Safe for a week in Hobart Town.

Danny Draper
29/12/2014