Vancouver to Sydney, Monday 8 May 2012
Dawn breaks for three hours straight along the wing
Of a 747, six thousand miles behind me, two thousand
Miles to go, Pentecost Island like a small light off the tip
Of the port wing.
While I lay across three seats impersonating
Sleep, a whole day disappeared; it happens all the time. The sea
Is blue and legioned and steep with days, and it’s fifteen hours
Across. The Pacific is an isobaric book of tides beneath
Me that has swallowed up where I’ve been.
But as long as my watch
Tells me the time I left behind, I’m still halfway there: midday
Tuesday in Vancouver; five a.m. Wednesday in Sydney; no time
At all where I am, thirty-six thousand feet above Noumea.
You step into an airport near midnight and mountains fall
Away. Everywhere you’ve been, shut like a child’s pop-up
Book, till the next time someone picks it up.
Your old life
Ahead of you yet, waking without you; you’re a thicket
Of afterthought, swimming home in high cloud.
But home
Is a fable, too, from this height, and you hang stateless, Aeneas
On a string that no one holds. You’re rowing home high in a medium
As mythic and elegant as Virgilian hexameter.
Nearing home
Is like remembering the future, and you’re hungry to make it
New this time, truer than how it’s ever run before.
But everything of course—once one lands—
Will be much the way it was.
Nearing home,
You’re a ghost walking out of rehab, stepping back
Into a body you cloaked while your inner life wandered
The peneplain; you’re putting on old clothes now
At thirty thousand feet and trying to stand up in them again.
Dawn’s still breaking hours later, when time starts to remember
Itself. History resumes, the sea resolves to come to an end; you tighten
Your belt and feel the plane relent.
Home is an island
Below you now, clouds bivouacked along its eastern shore; home
Is a theatre of war in its own aftermath, and an army of other ghosts
Is massed there, waiting for the right wind
to carry them way back out beyond their depth.
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones