Acacia on the roadside

Bursts of golden yellow dot the highway

from Narrabri to Gunnedah,

a blur of colour along the Kamilaroi.

In florists,

they sell neatly bundled bunches of your blooms

twenty-five dollars a piece,

wattle wrapped in plastic and wound with ribbon.

Out here you are free.

I wind down the window:

your perfume fills the car

heavy and sweet like clear spring honey.

Along the roadside you erupt through bitumen,

straddle fence lines between properties,

dust riverbeds with flecks of gold.

You threaten telegraph lines.

You follow closely the black road which snakes

with grey bitumen and oil slick,
pollen floating, coating the windscreens
of B-doubles and semis, trucks and trailers
on the long drive back to Sydney.