Ekphrastic Challenge 17

Where you live, by Jo Curtain

SEE—THERE!
ADRIAN BROOKES

Out from these walls I release you, my soul,
Into realms of blue eternity,
Where no-one can know what you see
except me—
And high as you alone can soar,
Far beyond cirrus’s feathered array,
There will infinity
Grow your dream.

 

I DO NOT KNOW YOU
JULIE RYSDALE

I saw you standing on the corner, and I stepped into your heart. It beats with vibrant colour. I swim through your veins and witness the stories that you saw. I saw your training in Sudan with a medical degree: your family proud, crying with joy and belief in your abilities. I saw how you escaped the war. I see how you howl for your father long passed away in a country with anger and violence. I see how you weep for your mother left behind as she awaits her time. I hear how it is many years since you have seen her and I see how she is connected with you by a fine thread that will never break. I saw you work hard in many trades as you retrained to be the doctor you once were. I feel your pride and I see the scatter of tossed emptiness tumble around your world.

The other day I met the dark-haired girl and stepped into her car. We drove around in her thoughts, and I felt her searing pain, her loss, her fear and the unknown world of life in a city she must call home. She showed me how she is bare against the clash of cultures. I see how her beliefs are scorned and mocked. As we drive, I hear her think of the enemy lurking on street corners, ready to whip their words and hurl stinging barbs. Her thoughts showed me how her culture is lost to vandals who cry out. Cry out for assimilation.

On the street corner he called me to him, and I became his words. I shouted out with a strong voice, not lost to winds and clouds. I called out from my past that my language needs to be heard. The horror of genocide needs to be written in the clouds. Our voice is not quelled, you cannot silence us. In Iraq I was imprisoned because we wanted freedom for our Kurdish people. They jailed me when I was nine years old, all I could see was barbed wire and walls. When we were released, we fled to the mountains. I am strong and my people are stronger.

I see you looking through your window at me looking up at you. I stand here saying words too simple and too shallow, not understanding your world at all. My flimsy words flutter against the reality of your life. I stand and wait until the cold wind sweeps the pieces of me away.

 

EYES
GEOFFREY GASKILL

The faces on the side of the building were big, but it was the eyes that got me.

My friend, however, didn’t see what I saw. ‘Vandalism,’ he cried, glowering. ‘Whoever did that ought to be made to clean it off.’

His rants were often as tiresome as they were predictable. The housing estate brought out the worst of his parochialism.

Unfortunately to get to our favourite coffee shop meant we had to pass beneath the gaze of those faces.

Most public art looks soulless to me. It fulfills a function, I suppose, but I’m not sure what it is.

Except …

Today I saw something in those features. It wasn’t the smiles or frowns because public art doesn’t seem to entertain those emotions they entail. What I saw was quizzical expressions asking unanswerable questions. Why am I in this place? …

Unlike my disapproving friend, I’m not offended by people leaving where they were born to begin a new life here.  I believe there’s a biological, almost umbilical, attachment that keeps us all close to that thing we call home. To undertake a journey to somewhere else requires a compelling fortitude I can’t begin to understand.

But such thinking was as woolly to my friend, as it wasn’t to me.

‘Eyes,’ I told him, pointing to the faces looking down at us. ‘Eyes tell you about life. Where we live … where they live. Eyes speak to universal human experiences and emotions.’

He looked me as though I was speaking Martian. All he’d wanted, he told me, was a coffee and a chat.

I thought about the images on the sides of silos in the Wimmera, the political art on the housing estates in the Bogside in Derry … Would he consider them vandalism too?

But there was little point in asking. He might be polite and listen but he’d never hear.

I wondered if he ever thought about hope and despair. Had he ever walked a mile in another’s shoes? I forbore mentioning other human experiences–pain and pleasure, longing and satisfaction …

A doctor friend of mine once said that without a heart and a brain the human body cannot live.

Science says he’s right.

But for me, without a connection to place … home … the heart shrivels and becomes no more than a glorified pump. The brain is just a calculator.

To be alive we need eyes to see where we’ve come from, where we’re going.

What would my companion say if I told him I didn’t live in a place? I lived in my heart. And my heart saw through my eyes.

Instead, I said, ‘The eyes get you every time. They’re windows to the soul. To understanding.’

He grunted. ‘Are we going for coffee or not?’

Before I moved on, those huge painted faces and I locked eyes.

We might reside here they seemed to tell me. But we live somewhere else.

 

MY VIEWS
JOHN HERITAGE

WHERE YOU LIVE
MISHA COLEMAN

‘And now, please welcome the Mayor to open this festival’, unenthusiastic applause follows.

After my speech, one of the residents of the flats, seated next to me on the podium, leans into me and says:

‘Hey missus, you ever been here before?’

‘Ah, no, not really. I lived in two different places in George Street, just ’round the corner, for years, but I’ve never been into the Estate – not like this I guess’.

I was embarrassed. Stupid white girl.

‘Afraid of us mob were ya?’

‘ I don’t know, not really afraid, it just felt like I would be walking through someone’s yard I spose’.

‘Well’ he says graciously, ‘you’re here now, what do ya think?’

It takes me a few beats. This is not some small-talk situation that I was used to finding myself in at the multitude of events and openings that I was asked to do.

‘Well, to be honest, I’m embarrassed that I’ve never taken the time to get to know anyone who lives here. And also, to be honest, I’m thinking that the art you’re showing here, and the conversations I’ve already had tonight, have been more important to me than any bloody Council meeting I’ve ever sat through – and I’ve sat through a lot Uncle’.

No response.

‘Is it ok for for me to call you Uncle?’

‘Yeah missus, no dramas. Is it okay for me to call you Missus?’

We both start giggling.

‘Yep it’s great. I’m going to introduce myself as Missus Mayor from now on’.

The formalities over, a bunch of kids rush up to him, grab him by the hands, and hall him away to a bunch of people who clearly love and adore him far more than any of my resident constituents did.

This time, this place, this afternoon, was what I remember as being one of the most honest and real experiences I had of being Mayor. I’m not scared of wandering through their grounds – I just feel lucky that its residents don’t seem to mind that I do. Not that they have a choice.

Author was a City Councillor and Mayor in the City of Yarra.

 

YOUR TURN
MARY-JANE BOUGHEN

They weren’t there last week.
I swear they weren’t. There was just the usual drab, grey, vertical concrete building.
Yet…
Over the course of the week,
A new face appeared,
Covering several floors,
till,
By Thursday,
Four people gazed out at me as I wandered through the dreary excuse for a playground on my way home from school.

But, and here’s when it’s gets weird.
Each day, the person in the lift on my way home up to the 35th floor,
Get this, it was THEIR face I saw the next day.

On Friday, day five,
The security guard for the building stopped me,
Handed me a mirror and whispered, take a good look at yourself.
It’s your turn.
10 o’clock tonight.
Be there.

 

WHERE YOU LIVE
GAIL GRIFFIN

Never one to go back, Vivienne nevertheless had reneged and accepted the invitation to address the 25th reunion of her selective co-ed high school.

‘Just look out for old boyfriends trying to win you over again,’ joked husband Mark.

‘As if!’ laughed Vivienne who lost no time booking her flight and accommodation.

After touching down at the airport in Sydney and retrieving her belongings, Vivienne made her way to Central Station. Rather than hailing a taxi, she happily walked, toting her suitcase on wheels, down a well-known path—that of the route to her former home.

Little had changed around the old neighbourhood, apart from the increase in the traffic flow that throbbed on Broadway. Turning into her old street though, she was taken aback by its changes.

Shady tree canopies sheltered luxury cars parked beneath them. Gone were the broken steps, peeling facades and graffiti, along with rusty, crumbling iron lacework. The rows of former neglected, shabby and unkempt rented slums had undergone massive renovations. A warm wave of nostalgia washed over Vivienne as she continued to marvel at the transformations that had created rejuvenated, glamorous, terrace houses in what was now a gentrified zone. Several boasted ‘SOLD’ signs and one, alongside Vivienne’s previous home, was open for inspection. Her interest piqued, she couldn’t resist the temptation to strike up a conversation with the attendant real estate agent.

‘Yes. We’re confident of getting $1.87 mill plus for this little gem,’ he said.

‘Wow!’

‘In the market, are you?’

‘No. Just reminiscing. My mother and I used to rent here during my teenage days. We were desperately poor at the time.’

‘Any good memories?’

‘Many. And all involve the strong sense of community enjoyed here.’

Leaving the property, Vivienne made her way back to Broadway, flagged down a taxi and rode to the hotel to make ready for the reunion.

‘OMG! Vivienne!’ boomed a male voice, as she entered the reunion’s venue. I’d almost given up hope of ever seeing you again. What a sight for sore eyes.’

‘And … you are…?’ queried Vivienne.

‘Rod. Hawkins. We danced at the Graduation Ball. Remember?’

‘Vaguely,’ she pretended. ‘Weren’t you the one who dumped me for that other girl. Janiece? North Shore mansion? Old money? I remember now. Had to make my own way home. Alone. Back to “Povertyville”, as you called it.’

‘Mmm. Janiece. Married her. Divorced. I’m a bachelor now. On the prrrowwwl!’ he flirted and preened himself.

‘Sorry to hear that.’

Insensible to her remark, he continued: ‘Had I known how you’d come up in the world …’

‘Really, Rod?’

‘Well, after all … ,‘ he stalled.

‘After all these years that’s the best you can offer? Life’s not about where you live, but how you live. Authenticity. Inclusiveness. Connectedness. Wouldn’t you agree, Rodney? In fact, that’s the message of my talk tonight.’

‘You’re the guest speaker?’ Silenced. Shamefaced. He slithered away.

‘Welcome ladies and gentlemen,’ the MC began. ‘Please be seated and welcome tonight’s speaker, Dr Vivienne Marsden.’

 

WHEN WHEELBARROWS REPLACE CARS
CATHERINE BELL

There’s one day in the year when a different sound can be heard along our road. It’s not the usual humming of cars passing by, the laughter of children in the playground, or the excited barking of dogs out for a walk. There’s a low rumbling noise at first, then a louder crunching of gravel and rippling laughter.

I peer over the garden fence and smile. It’s the neighbours trundling battered old wheelbarrows laden with provisions down the middle of the road.

They converge on the green kikuyu of the playground opposite our home. Contents are unloaded. Deckchairs scattered. The large wooden picnic table quickly covered with food and drinks to share. It’s a Saturday afternoon in early December, and it’s the neighbourhood Christmas party.

I’m a big stickybeak and the neighbourhood party is a highlight of my summer. I enjoy seeing old neighbours, meeting new people, hearing about their lives. Most years, at least thirty locals meet in the park to eat, drink and talk, to share stories of their families, and to discuss local issues such as the future of the reed-clogged sanctuary at one end of our road.

We’re a mixed bunch. The Irish couple, a few doors down, bring a decent amount of light-hearted craic to the gathering. The hippies, newcomers in the house with lopsided flywire screens, arrive with platters of tofu, faux chicken balls and pita bread. The couple by the river regale us with eye-watering stories of their time as corporate executives with bulging expense accounts. And the retirees from Hamilton come with their long list of predictable complaints about perceived multiple inefficiencies of the Shire.

Suzie and Alan bring a touch of class with their fine cheeses and freshly baked sourdough. They raise the bar of our communal picnic. Jo and Jane have the biggest wheelbarrow, the biggest hearts and the biggest wine glasses. They are community-minded and care for neighbours in many practical ways. Recently, my family was in need of extra support. The two J’s pushed their lawnmower down the road and smartened up our garden.

The conviviality continues until the light begins to fade. The wheelbarrows are loaded up again and our neighbours trundle back down the road.

It is our annual celebration of community, and of our good fortune to live in a beautiful part of the world. There’s no urban asphalt footprint, no concrete gutters or drains and few streetlights. Just bush, beach and river. Native vegetation lines our road and at one point, a canopy of eucalypts forms a magical tunnel near our front gate.

After heavy rain, a hopscotch of puddles slows the traffic. While winter brings mud and corrugations to our gravel road, billowing clouds of dust signal the summer months.

We live in a kind and caring community where there is little pretension. Where people prefer the practicality of wheelbarrows over fashionable picnic baskets. And where puddles, mud and dust happily coexist.

 

WE, THE PRIVILEGED
CLAUDIA COLLINS

We, the privileged—the musicians, artists, writers, actors, and dancers who entertain with our sound, our vision, our words, our portrayal, and our movement—Yes, We the privileged are high above the cloud, living within this plasma-crete dome we call ‘Theatre’.

There are other domes. Those nearest are ‘Laboratory’—home of the scientist, the inventor, and the healers; ‘Library’—for the scholars, teachers, and law-makers; and ‘Temple’ where our spiritual leaders reside. All domes are tethered to Hel by thin flexible columns bearing Vacuum-lifts which bring our bounty from below and remove waste from above.

We are protected from Hel, that doomed planet where putrid, yellow air burns the skin and sears the lungs. None from above have ever been below and none from below have ever been above. We cannot imagine the lives of the surface dwellers. They exist to construct, destroy, and recycle. They serve us—We, the privileged.

Excited, I board the Skybus. We—the chosen few of the chosen few, have been carefully selected to visit Heven, our first off-world colony, for the ‘Ultimate Fine Wine and Dine Experience’. My allocated seat is next to diminutive Denis, once a journalist who attempted to shock us with the truth. Well, ten years in a re-training camp and now he writes Soporific Poetry, designed to lull. Beautiful words? Or meaningless twaddle? Across the aisle is Susannah, a woman of impressive proportions and a painter of futuristic landscapes.

The door behind the Skybus is closed. In front, another door opens to reveal the lilac-coloured sky. A stunning sight but the air is too thin to breathe, hence the need for the dome which also shields us from the cancerous, ultra-violet light. Seatbelt on, earbuds in, I activate the Touch-Screen in front of me. I select from the entertainment menu—my guitar and voice fill my ears. Synthesized food and drink are delivered on an automated trolley. Later, a fine mist filters down from overhead vents. Its cloying scent fills our nostrils making us drowsy. Time to sleep. The boredom of a long interplanetary flight is not for—We The Privileged.

‘Welcome to Heven’, a soothing voice awakens me. Outside the window, the planet is flat and red. Where are the fields, the forests, the mountains, oceans, and lakes of Susannah’s paintings? On landing we are transported to a rectangular warehouse made from plasma-crete, like our domes. A travellator delivers us to a room dominated by a large Touch-Screen and filled with tables and chairs, where food and wine the like of which we have never before tasted is consumed.

‘This is not Synthapork!’ Susannah belches with satisfaction.

‘No, it is not!’ the Touch-Screen lights up to reveal the mass transportation, slaying, and butchering of the denizens of Hel. This segues into a Master Chef cookery exhibition.

‘… I bet none of you ever dreamed you would be eating Jenny from the Block,’ The Touch-Screen demonstration finishes.

‘I wonder how the wine is made,’ is Denis’s comment.