THE FLATTENED HILLS OF ANTIPODEA
-- a melancholy end to Marcel Proust
I have abandoned Proust
-- his words do not fit here--
and so I will pursue myself
among the jarrah, the tingle tree, pink frangipani and jacaranda
joined to greenleaf, the scrub, the silver dunes
and all the turquoise shores
* * *
this is not Paris
this is not a cork-lined room
this is where the sheer clarity of Vera Lynne belongs:
'there'll be bluebirds
over the white cliff of Dover
tomorrow, just you wait and see
there'll be peace and laughter
and joy ever after
tomorrow, just you wait and see'
but here is today and I am not so far away from myself
-- just a windshield away
merely a landshield away
when the hills flatten out
the pursuit will be over
and Proust will never matter again
* * *
in the constant moments of dreaming
I dream this land
something Proust could never have done
because you have to be here to dream it
you can do nothing here but dream
this is an entire continent to fill with dreams
so many emptinesses, so many pockets
it will take so much time, Proust could never dream this much
time passed,
or this much time future
it will be all of the time passed, present
and the time of
granddaughters and grandsons
and theirs as well
and theirs as well
and theirs as well . . .
* * *
set in the middle of nowhere, Australia
defies imagination
because it is itself imagination
and there is no other place to go
other than throwing Proust out the car window,
and going, assuming I'll be waiting for myself
just around the next curve
five hundred miles up the road