"gaily bedight"

He left the city in an old ute
that rattled like it had stories
he hadn’t earned yet,
chasing the last shimmer
of a gold rush long finished.

Main street met him with nothing
but a bakery closing early,
a dog stretched under a bench,
and a noticeboard of events
already past.

He stood there anyway,
hands in pockets,
listening to the steady quiet
of a place not trying
to impress him.

And something in him—
the part waiting for a rush,
a sign, a city‑sized answer—
shifted its weight
and stepped aside.

No gold here.
No promise of it.
Just a man, a ute,
a small town at dusk,
and the sense that maybe
what he’d been chasing
was never meant to be found
out there.

He turns the key.
The engine catches.
He stays himself—
but the road inside him
is different now.

.