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