THE STORM BIRD AND THE BOAT
I will now speak about this sound. This will be the only time in this story that I am here with you in the same moment, in the same time. The sound of this bird and the boat; a hollow and woody melancholia that borders on ridiculous, a depressed novelty toy. It is this coincidence of nature and machine, of closeness (the storm bird in that tree) and distance (the boat on the far sea line), their simultaneous individuality transmitted by the vacant air that allows their sound, both close and far, to carry the place in one whole and queer momentary situation. It lasts for no more than three seconds, but in those three seconds the small town is both there and here. The distance between all things are relevant and simultaneous; where the space between my ear and my shoulder is the space in between our eyes and the sea’s horizon; the wideness of the shore is the wideness of Hunter Street, the high cliff faces are the mansions in Cooks Hill; the collar bones of topless surfers are the rock pools of Mereweather, the train line is the telephone line, your house up the hill is his house in Hamilton, the palm frond in King Edward’s Park is your sleeping head resting on your upturned hand.
During dusk and dawn does this duet only happen, although pretty, it makes me anxious; for this sound heralding the beginning of the day is the same sound heralding what I find, not to be the close of the day, but rather the beginning of the night; the circularity in my sense of this place, a shape where there is no middle and end; just a relentless theatre of beginnings devoid of newness, revealed for me in the confluence of these two woody mournful cries, the insular feeling of a spatial loop.
The call of bird and boat finishes, and here we are.
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