What’s in the album but time’s

shocks and shadowings,

every image interim?

Between the stockman’s moleskin trews,

the Captain’s uniform,  immaculate or bloodied

this shipboard sketch,

courtesy P&O’s travelling artist …
There’s something of the dandy

(linen jacket, weskit, spats,

cufflinks opalescent gleam) . . .

A musical chap, much in demand

as dancing partner to  the hopeful girls

who came aboard at Bombay

pallid from Indian heat

and still unmarried

“A Jackaroo” they say, “how quaint!”

The smiling mothers

in cabins shake a rueful head

“I know my dear, a gentleman, a General’s son,

but quite, quite, without prospects …”
And sometimes he leaves the music,

goes unpartnered, tired of talk,

up to the top deck to look at the stars,

a trick he learned standing outside

his  boundary rider’s hut

with only stars  and  cattle for company.
Now the Southern Cross is left behind,

he marks Orion, bridger of hemispheres,

uneasy messenger,

for though he is going “home”

to everything familial, familiar,

something within has shifted –

in the space of those outback nights

he has unwittingly

made friends with silence.  
It will stand him in good stead

for what’s to come.