Katoomba 2780
New Year's Day, the Clarendon Hotel, Katoomba
the place hung over from last night’s Fire and Ice ball, the numbers at breakfast have swelled
newspapers parade New Year firework
extravaganzas, positive messages and exhortations -
please let there be no more planes swallowed whole by the sea,
no more reporting of the frantic searches and
family anguish,
set aside these grizzly details
as we pause over breakfast, and thoughtfully
sip our teas.
we pack the car and leave, for coffee and gifts
in Leura
Bundeena 2230
we drive through a national park with poodle,
mother, and step-father back seat
the rent-a-bomb fearless on the hot sticky
roads
to the beach which is crowded,
I rush into the water and sink under, the sand
suddenly gives way
washed up
plunge back
into the waves
Marrickville 2204
we pick up a bag of ice and return to
Marrickville,
to drink on the balcony,
and watch 20,000 Days on Earth on the
laptop -
Nick on memory - Nick on love
I can't remember anything at all, flame
trees line the streets
we fall into bed, another sticky night's sleep
Sydney 2000
we brave the train and head into town to swim
by the docks,
the pool is crowded, lap-swimmers, families and
couples idling the day
beside us an aircraft carrier berthed, no
sailors, the winches and cranes abandoned,
the harbour entrance just visible, day boats
turn in to look, then head out again.
I swim lengths, the salt water stings,
we buy a salad roll and head up to the gallery
on the hill,
to meet Nelia at 1.30, beautiful the way the
sandstone carves,
the names etched along the facade, Michael
Angelo, here?
Warhol offers no surprise, nor the Barbra
Krueger,
a spinning siren sings out Brett Whitley in New
York,
a collage, a dead bird, the scratched and
lyrical words -
the world is brilliant, and painful,
it must be honoured, and anaesthetised
eventually we dawdle, home
Newtown 2042
meditation at 9, a simple breathing exercise
for 1 hour,
afterwards we visit the bookstore,
then ice cold frappes: banana, berry and
passion fruit,
it melts quickly as my hot hands wrap around
the plastic cup
then into the blessed cool of the theatre,
darkness, early Victorian England, to see Mr
Turner,
his trick with light, and his own spit -
the way the world looks when you are warm
inside,
when we love without asking for anything back
Bronte 2024
is full of brash young things, women swimming in
bras and undies,
sitting by the side of the road,
big boys in big cars.
Melinda malingers but I plunge in, free, as the
ocean sweeps over, and into the pool
watching the waves, inhaling the mussels as
they cling to the rocks,
the moon appears over Bronte, and Bondi beyond
the birds in the bay,
circle, soundless from here
Amanda Surrey, 2015
