Shooting Stars

 

Everything except language
knows the meaning of existence
Trees, planets, rivers, time
know nothing else. They express it
moment by moment as the universe.

Even this fool of a body
lives it in part, and would
have full dignity within it
Except for the ignorant freedom
of my talking mind.

Les Murray.


The pictures haven't been working all morning; which threw me. I like putting up stuff I just take around town. Not all of them work, but some of them do. This is the ceiling at the Darling Harbour Convention Centre. Beneath it was the impressive sight of the media centre; with journalists from all over the world; computers everywhere, large screens scattered across the floor; all the time, while I was there, playing George Bush delivering his APEC speech, telling us they will win in Iraq. We were encouraged to be anonymous. A courageous step that couldn't be true. I know him, it's alright. Unsettled in extremis. All very APEC...

That was yesterday. I ran out of time and the only thing I could get to work was a picture of a ceiling. Go figure, says the phrase, which is much like our politics. Howard continues to thrash around after APEC has left town. $330 million they said it cost; but that doesn't include the hundreds of millions lost to businesses across the city who had a lousy week; with turnover down by at least half; sometimes virtually total.

Faces loom out of the day; all their own story. We exchange pleasantries and move on. There wasn't a lot to consider. They were lifetimes away; in sunlit bars and joyful times. Now, he didn't participate. Affection took them all by surprise. On that glorious drunken day. Ecstatic recall; remembering the best times only. They were still there in the streets; all this time later. He could feel them. All the leaders have left now; powerful men watching fireworks on the harbour; a collision of circumstance. Normal activity folds back over the city as if it had never been; and our own muffled stories come back into play.


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