FIRST PRIZE

BRIAN NISBET POETRY AWARD 2020

DAWN McLACHLAN

REVERIE

My grandfather told me of a forest

three days into the desert

reached by long march

and cold nights under an ice moon

with the endless sky of a billion stars

Restless and sleepless under dusty canvas

with drifting lilt of desert song

and bone-snap of a dying fire

he dreamt of home

Each morning they marched towards the distant shifting horizon

until the sun burnt air and lungs

Boots filled with hot sand and heavy pack pulling down

he marched on

leading until, in twilight, it rose from the sand

blackened ghosts of trees

claw-like branches scratching the blue belly of the approaching night

polished by wind and time

shining as glass

A petrified forest

casting lean moon-shadows against the rippled sand

a memory of life

a reminder of death

They marched on through

unsheltered by these parodies of trees

My grandfather broke step

to pluck a splintered fragment from the sand

Forty years later I sat

with a glassy fossil in my tiny hand

feeling it grow hot

a vision in my mind’s eye of his past

and of one much greater

I hung on every word

seeing as clearly as if I had walked in his sand-filled boots

listening and dreaming

as my grandfather told me of a forest