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SEPTEMBER 4TH, 1997, THIS BRILLIANT GOLDEN DAY
Of course the next day always came, I looked out at the huge thunderstorm building up over Melbourne, it had become such a small city of casual clothing and second-rate politicians, greyly clinging to the coast way down in the less publicised southern part of the world, the power lay in the grass throughout the city's parks and ovals, the powdery crimson galahs were feeding in the grass, their fat breasts and chunky grey heads lit up by the afternoon sun, the birds had flown in from a long time past bringing summer with them, they were the little gods of summer, laying low in spring, if there is something I love about Australia, it's the light arid colour of the parched earth that will always directly contrast with the build-up of purple storms, this contrast of sun that is beyond my control was rising and setting behind the black thunderclouds, this sun as though it were showing off or joyfully skipping through the sky instead of just being in it, the warmth in the continent's breeze, this golden light and purple clouds looked brilliant to me, I thought is this the time that I am meant to say, 'it's worth it just to be alive, just for this day and just for this scene', I opened my arms like a star or those angels that Canadians laid down and made in the dry snow, during this energetic stretching, it was as though my body was extending in parts, to receive yet more of this day, 'the world is chiefly beautiful, it is so beautiful', my eyes saw the scene through the lens of emotions, I didn't know whether to feel it or not, I thought there is no doubt in my heart that the world is beautiful, but does this make it worth it to live in?, does this brilliant golden day make my life worth living?, and the answer is no, no it doesn't, in any book of prayer and session of optimism, we could make these brilliant landscapes bigger than they really are, this golden scenery doesn't offer me what has been taken or lost, it doesn't make up for the tremendous suffering that was endured before this day in the park, and what will be endured afterwards, it doesn't make up for the suffering that is happening alongside this scenery, as I know it is, even as I feel this joy, it simply presents is brilliance to me momentarily, it says, 'here, take this brilliant golden day,' by the time these gifts were offered, I had grown too weary to receive them and to illuminate my heart with them, for the same heart that had been capable of feeling acute joy had also been capable of feeling acute despair, and if there had been as near as much joy as despair in the world, then I would have searched it out and found it, for I hungered for joy and my senses were keen to its presence, but there wasn't, and so despair slopped around inside me like dirty water in a tin pail, that just sits there in a backyard, whether it has the sun on it or whether it has the rain on it, it says, "so what?", I hope there will never come a day when the park will present its golden side and I will say, "so what?", now I see my scars in the light, I see my old dying hands and my scarred arms, and I feel the dried and cracked skin around my eyes and on my neck, but I do not say, "so what?", I am bewildered and thankful, when the day presents itself as a golden basket of parks, it is as though a lover who has physically battered me for a very long time suddenly says, "I'm sorry". |
