A Wooden Bench, Evening
May 11, 2015 § Leave a comment
He sits
Atop a wooden bench
Holding a half-smoked, hand-rolled cigarette:
The smoke swirls of which wind in the wind
Upward, through a tall, well-leafed tree
Towards an immanent crepuscule;
The bench is perched to one corner
Of a circle of native grass that sprawls outward
Etching its way towards the trees,
Which replicate into oblivion.
He says:
There is a specter haunting this country:
It has been here since the beginning
–
That is to say, for forty thousand years…
For forty thousand years
For forty thousand years
Say it,
Say:
For forty thousand years…
What does that even mean?
…For forty thousand years.
Is ‘It’ the specter or is ‘it’ the country?
Which has been here
For forty thousand years.
…
Which has been here
For forty thousand years?
The country or the specter?
You see,
Nothing is definitive.
Nothing is set in stone.
Nothing lasts forever.
Nothing is all there is
Here
For there is nothing…
Sorry,
Was, nothing:
There was nothing
Here.
A change in pace
Although it helps with PR campaigns
To have a slogan:
Quickly
Stop the boats
Terra Nullius
Cry God for Harry, England and Saint George!
Wait!
Don’t mention the motherland.
They’ll get the wrong idea:
It’s not about them.
Forget I said anything
Focus on the facts:
Forty thousand years.
For forty thousand years.
He pauses
Here to light a new cigarette:
The brown tobacco wound tight in white,
Ignited
The glow illuminates the growing dark
And he kindly continues to talk.
Let’s not beat around the bush,
What happened next?
Next?
After the forty thousand years
After the most defining moment
In History.
After that?
Yeah, what happened after that?
…
Exactly.
It’s the afterwards that matters
And it’s glossed over like
Some kind of embarrassed
Post-party excuse:
Sorry, I was drunk.
Sorry, I was drunk.
Sorry.
As if that suddenly makes
Everything
All better.
He smiles
You know what I think?
What, what do you ‘think’?
History is long:
I should know,
We’ve been here
For forty thousand years.
The smile spreads
And you know what else?
What?
There’s no first
No last;
No first,
No last:
The absurdity of the idea
Sinks in
So one day everyone
Will be a little like us,
Not the other way around.
Today is a blip, a hiccup
In time
And nothing more.
A leaf falls towards the dusted ground
Spiraling elegantly towards the dirt,
Then it twists away
And, as a moth,
Flutters upwards
Back to the tree trunk
Where it sits
Camouflaged
And, after a moment,
Disappears
So it seems
Into the bark.
Magic.
His eyes dare me to challenge him.
–
I don’t.
Tell me more.
He sighs.
You don’t need to know
Everything.
You don’t need to understand
Everything.
Help me.
He reaches down
And tears a blade of grass
From the native circle
And hands it to me.
You get a piece:
Be happy with that.
It’s dark:
The trees have cordoned the grass off
And blend now together with the shadows
So it is impossible to know where
One ends and the other begins.
It unfolds across the land and towards
The nighttime sky
Endlessly.
There is no first
There is no last.
I look at my piece
I look at him
I look around
And I leave.
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