One of a series of poems and tales about a wandering through inner New South Wales. Packsaddle Roadhouse is a watering hole between Broken Hill and Tibooburra in the Australian outback.
It’s a fair way up the road from Broken Hill -
Packsaddle — a place to stop and have a drink
to wash the ochre grit from your mouth and chill
the hot or warm the lonely cold you want to fill.
I drove out here to read and paint, write and think
but the sky’s too big and blue for written words
and there’s too much dust blown for a brush to sink
in clean unsullied colour.
