He says ‘black’ for a universe of reasons including atmosphere, prisms and an astronaut who’s been there and knows it all.
I tell him black doesn’t suit Adelaide’s peachy veins in the bloodshot eyes of a lazy summer’s sunset, even with the pump and grind of black tyres, black roads and the burnt black crumbs waiting for me on our oven’s wire racks.
Black magpies cawk about their many white patches and I fear for my unborn grandchildren who will one day ask what colour is the sky and I’ll say just look at it, that rusty rust-colour!
We’re on a blanket and I’ve brought a picnic, we’re by the river – can you smell that river? – a sixty-year-old rock legend is about to sing, we’re a lucky country, the grass smell, the river stink, the waft of a joint; somewhere a child is eating Shapes.
Soon the sun will set, its sinking felt first on the crowns of our heads. My son will ask What time will we go home? and I will say When it is dark and the sky is glittered with light because that’s what it looks like in the black of night.
