ANTIPODEAN DREAM

Slumbering:

What colour, so vivid and clean,

Endless cobalt heavens and

Crisp divergence of air and earth,

Greens of every hue,

Frothing waves teasing scintillating sands.

In my dream, it’s February,

bright and balmy.

Stripping our uniform as we reach the sandhills,

Stopping to gawk at a flock of gnawing cockatoos.

Waking:

from imprinted sounds of

currawongs call and answer,

kookaburras 4am song,

halyards clinking on Pittwater yachts,

the crashing at the Pacific shore.

Fading fidelity of my history,

transitioning to the prevailing

twittering birds - a tamed, mere bagatelle vibration.

Nothing wild to connect with echoes of my childhood.

Staring:

through the ceiling, I am

perched on a gabled roof,

peering across ‘manicured’ woodlands

and orderly vineyards.

No gnarled gumtrees, or ghosts of bushfires past.

It’s perfect pines and birds that chirrup,

no cacophony of shrieks and erratic warbles.

Stillness or an occasional dry breeze,

Never a southerly buster or fresh nor’easter.

Breathing:

Ryegrass pollen persecutes all senses,

the musk of cow manure plunders my dreamscape,

no soothing sea-salt air. And alas!

My window frames depilated orchard rows

Imprisoned within a sculpted hedge

under blanched beryllium skies and eggshell clouds.

Where is the wild?

Where is the free?

By some twist of fate, they’re now buried in me.