The Wednesday Poem

Traveller at Lake Wakatipu​

there you go, poking your head out
for that cooked breakfast smell
making its way up the stairs
crawling in to your hotel bedroom
leading you outside, via
glassed-in double doors

sunlight’s crossing the road
yellowing the jetty lawn
where you’re gulping freshest air
staring beyond far lake shore
to the snowy crown
of The Remarkables

down here, where tourists are meant
to stand, camera ready
for the perfect picture shot
of a windless dawn
brassy old, oily old, TSS Earnslaw
chugging against its hawser ropes

then as it gets away, churning water
like a ploughshare turning soil
domino effect of its long tail wake
slapping metre by metre of shoreline
till its jigsaw puzzle of reflections
settles back into a model postcard

Ross Jackson

Ross Jackson is a retired teacher writing free verse. He tries conjuring the moods associated with small events observed, or imagined, taking place in the suburbs. He has had work published in many magazines and poetry websites. A collection, Time alone on a quiet path, was published by UWAP in 2020.

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