Bathurst

My sister,
we were always
so different
from each other -
'Chalk and cheese'
mum would say.

But we share a childhood,
our shaping years,
spent side by side in the back seat,
on the first stages of the journey.

And now you're leaving.
God has flung you somewhere new.
Soon the last box will be sealed,
the truck doors will slam shut,
and you'll drive back
to where it all began -

Back to that cold, beautiful town,
where Autumn covers the parks
with a carpet of orange
and the taps freeze in winter;
back to where God first drew our family to him,
one by one,
slowly chipping away at mum,
melting dad's resistance in one morning.

And now you're driving back
with your own little family,
for God to use you,
in the chipping and melting work
that he has planned for many hearts.