Published in Overland Issue 231 Winter 2018 · Uncategorized Dunes Sarah Day The suburban bus route elicits in its rider a mood of compliance while it finds the longest distance possible between two points, allowing that time is expendable, that mangrove swamps, ti-tree forests and wild coasts become sub-divisions with names like Anna Bay, Corlette. Everything happens in slow motion, each passing sign a long call for attention: Subway Drive-Thru; Baylife Church; Laser Skirmish; Spectrum Church Café/School. At a point which could be half way, the bus pulls in beside Putters Mini Golf and Clay Target Shooting on a gravel shoulder across from a boggy farm that wants to be marsh land. The engine cuts. One or two people continue to talk about the health problems of someone they know, then stop. The driver methodically closes and locks his black change box, takes his lunch in its paper bag, folds his beaded seat comforter under his arm and leaves to speak to the uniformed man in the white ute who will become our driver when they have both done chatting and nodding and passing the time of day. The passivity of children in the back seats stares out of windows. Then, another curbed roundabout, another drained swamp, another turn-off from the destination through land just cleared of forest and koala, now decorated with surveyors’ pegs. A derelict mess drifts by of concrete holiday apartments that the inexorable dunes are repossessing; and then another post-modern Toy-Town retail centre with its improbable spire and its singular icons: the Giant Skittle, the Golden Arches. Read the rest of Overland 231 If you enjoyed this poem, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four outstanding issues for a year Sarah Day Sarah Day’s latest books, Tempo and Towards Light (Puncher & Wattmann, 2015, 2018), were shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s and Tasmanian Premier’s Literary Awards. More by Sarah Day › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays First published in Overland Issue 228 30 November 202330 November 2023 · Urbanism The Plains exposes the psychic terrain of Victoria’s highways Fred Pryce The Plains charts the psychic terrain of the freeway in miniature, peeling back the lid of the private vehicle to expose just one of the millions of dramas taking place in simultaneity, severed from one another yet still part of the same city-wide traffic ballet. First published in Overland Issue 228 29 November 202329 November 2023 · Housing Conflicts of classes and interests: why it’s vital for renters to organise — and tell our stories Jordie van den Berg Some of the stories that have already been shared on shitrentals.org show not only the horrible state of Australia’s housing landscape, with hundreds of images uploaded showing mould in its various stages of progression, caved-in ceilings and electrical work that could only be the product of a drunk landlord — but also the more insidious nature of the real estate industry.