Brendan The Bringer

BRENDAN THE BRINGER


Every day for six days Brendan
rises at the quarter to two AM
has a fast coffee and walks out
into the night whether it's bright-starred
or overcast goes around the corner to
the side street where he parks it
and climbs up like a night pilot to
the lit cabin of his prime mover
- a Mack truck rig with doubles, two
trailers full of skim milk powder
or it might be full cream from a dairy
processing plant down at Koroit and
he throws the switch to start those
big pistons moving till it fires like a
small volcana of laval rumbling, the
call of just this one engine among
the many that throb along our dreams
and only rarely wake us to perception
and then not to give any real thought
to the weighty tonnes of this great baby
freight of extradited mother's milk
which Brendan will bring hurtling
down the truck-tyre-spooned state
highways where silent owls flutter
towards the depots and the ports
of the cities where infant food is
vastly consumed with small consultation
with the cows which Brendan passes
as he, quietly as it can be done, eases
the big rig into bulk motion and racks
the stick up a piano of gears to turn the
music of those trailers in many milk tonnes
out to slowly pick up speed like it was
a sort of precious metal until the delimit
signs end and then the riffs break into
the whole theme as the music swells
as our night rocket is speeding in
like a sleeping babe snoring by
with trusty Brendan at the wheel
towards all that crying need where
the money concentrates where the
money congeals for a bringer's reward.
When he has delivered his load
Brendan turns the truck about
and goes the opposite way on
the very same road indentations
till he gets to Koroit to fill up again
with powdered milk and so drives
the rig back home by late afternoon
spends small time with family going
early to bed so he can wake again
to take the load at quarter to 2 AM.


Image: Milk Factory, Koroit, Victoria