The Young Governor

When will it be sir?
When will it be?

You will know boy.
You will know.

Those lumber sized arms
threading the reefs,
thick swollen and sapped
with alchemies
of new blood
will come for us,
enclose us
with the acrid smell
of strange forests
and creatures
the likes of which
you have never seen.

On your mother’s grave boy
your soul will scream
at first for penitence,
but gradually
the fear will subside
and be replaced
by your own curiosity
as it did me
all those journeys ago.

If you’re lucky
she might put on
a pretty fair show,
pour steam from her belly
and fire from her mouth,
she might quake
and your lonely past months

be aborted
by indeed such a seductive prize.
For she’s a fair woman boy,
she is enough for all,
those arms
full mounds
of mountainous ranges,
those fingers of viper
swift beckoning,
that hair of virulent
waterfalls,
those eyes of cruel sun
and scalding sand,

you will never forget her
and though you’ve a home
where your heart will stay
once known, she’ll call you
over the miles
for the rest of your days
and beg promise you will return.

Then over the years
by your children’s grandchildren
you will alienate then consummate,
federate and migrate,
populate, violate,
democrate and cultivate
and so on and so on,
she’ll be hauling you in,
she’ll be spitting you out
with your gut tucked in
and your shirt tails out
as the flag of her adopted doctrine.
Generations will salute your posterior.

And learning to laugh
will be your native tongue,
short poppies will adorn
your coat of arms,
you’ll see through your mirrors
dark faces peering in,
she’ll coerce you
to say you’re sorry.

So boy,
take the rudder,
we’ll sail for such places
unknown on the map of time,
yet even now
in the distance
her gales buffet and blow,
her perfumes ignite the wind,
and we’ll be there
in time for history’s impasse:

alight lightly,
for we have sinned,

and you will know boy.
You will know.

Mark Willing lives in Ferntree Gully, Melbourne. His poetry has appeared in various literary magazines, including Verandah, Five Bells and Small Packages.

E-mail: Mark Willing