" Flying the Loop "
My train runs through the loop beneath
this mirror city. The rails curve around
then make a straight and narrow way as far
as Belgrave where the Puffing Billy waits.
The city’s a grid of intersecting rails.
I heave my bag of books, get off the tram
and make a straight and narrow way towards
the escalators at Melbourne Central.
I heave my bag of books and cross the road.
A blind man and a Labrador guide dog stand
by descending stairs that unfold like pages.
The blind man raises one urbane eyebrow.
A man and a Labrador guide dog stare.
‘This is hell, nor am I out of it’: Goethe,
quoted by a blind man’s urbane eyebrow.
I begin the descent to platforms level three.
‘This is hell, nor am I out of it.’ Then,
‘I was blind but now I see’. They sing it;
(as I descend to platforms level three)
the old congregations, the fire preachers.
‘I was blind but now I see’. I see
the deep beneath the tempest. Shakespeare’s pearls
shine in the eyes of charismatic preachers.
This train is racing through the Bible belt.
Beneath the tempest, eyes are pearls and change
accretes in layers ’round an irritant.
My destination’s in the Bible belt, but
Fortune spits me out at the wrong station.
Change accretes in layers or interrupts
thought mid-speech with a flash from the blue.
Fortune spat me out at the wrong station.
God knows why. It seems I misread the sign.
A flash from the blue stopped my thought mid-track.
A magpie landed and strutted a rail
between the platforms at Heatherdale station
for a full fifteen minutes. God knows why
a magpie strutted the railway track, black
and white, white and black. Nobody was there
for a full fifteen minutes. Then it flew
close to me and stared like there was a point.
Black and white and winged, a different law.
At Heathmont, I was given the books I keep
close to me as if there were a point; a book
on Buddhism and one of poems on birds.
These are the books I read now on the train.
No straight and narrow way has brought us here.
A Buddhist history, a poetry of birds
fly the loop beneath the mirror city.
© 2003 Nellie Melba (Lorin Ford)
|
|
