Tag: Sydney

we do not know ourselves

let me tell you about us, all five million of us:

we are a city allergic to the damp, when waters rise, we forget to flee

instead, we gaze upwards

searching for sky fire, mistaking light mist for feather embers.

we are a people programmed for brightness, in this postcard, bridge framed city

coaxing bud to open into wisteria and mulberry and

shoving tufts of jasmine into windowsill jars

herding spring like sugar fuelled children onto greyhound coaches,

and all the school fetes and blossom festivals,

fairy floss and food trucks:

Turkish gozleme and vegan donuts

a Filipino family singing

on open mic:

a high school teacher brings her newborn to the festival and

the basketball boys/the almost juvie knowntothecops boys

clear a path for her child,

space, space they call to each other

shrinking as a sign of respect,

let me tell you about us,

without sunlight we do not know ourselves.

Lightnoise

Sydney is obsessed with illumination. Fireworks when smoke encircles the city, old growth forest turning to charcoal. Light that dances on still winter buildings. Air that burns in the chill.

After the plague, people slide from beneath their doonas, step away from their streaming subscriptions and wade through the throng of crying infants and their parents, who are also crying. Inwardly.

After the plague they stand in the winter winds to watch colour move.

How many migrating moths fall to the ash covered pavements, seized by their own epilepsy, their inner compass broken?

That’s Sydney.

After the plague.

How contagious its lights, its movement-

frenetic,

garish,

intrusive.

After the plague we must keep moving, even if the sound of light invades the silence and

Give me stillness.

Let the sky breathe.

Leave the architecture be, let the buildings slump into night’s cocoon.

Let it be.