Landfall: an Essay
Simply by sailing in a new direction,
you could enlarge the world – oops,
that’s a Kiwi poem I grew up with.*
(Well, you could, in Tasman’s time.)
Simply by settling in Seattle,
I could enlarge my world – that’s
more like it. Not that I hadn’t
visited some of the U.S. before,
but this – leasing a flat with my wife,
furnishing it, having the dogs
sent over so it feels like home –
looking round, wide-eyed, that’s me.
Oh, I was used to towns by water,
Auckland on its green isthmus,
Edinburgh by its Firth, Melbourne
by its bay, grateful for glimpses
beyond the traffic and buildings,
a beyond that’s true to the sky
open to weather and moon, and
somewhere beyond the beyond.
Seattle! Well, we look out windows,
one south – spiky city skyline:
lean against the picture window,
see the corny Space Needle outline;
beyond: a sliver of Puget Sound,
land beyond that, and on clear days,
the Olympic Range – snowcapped peaks!
How beyond can you get!
Other view: over Lake Union,
busy till dusk with small craft
and seaplanes, then night’s long lights
electric and reflected shimmering,
overseen by a slowly changing moon;
constantly taking us out of ourselves.
Wouldn’t we flourish on the water?
and return refreshed, re-grounded.
Venture forth: which café will it be?
(A small coffee, then ask for tall!)
Eavesdropping is its own reward:
the voices here are resonant,
genial. You think: at home, at school
these people grew up cherished.
True, on the streets are many homeless,
many need help, some White, more Black.
The voices, however, resonate,
as if from a deeper sense of self
than those recalled in towns I’ve known.
Is there anything in this? I’m
singing in the shower more …
baritonely, sounding out my Rs.
In shops the help offered feels real.
‘I’m Jess, I’m your server tonight’ –
at first I grimaced ‘oh, earning tips’ –
formulaic, yes, but lived up to.
The woman at the bus stop sang
as if in church. My wife thanked her.
Oh, the Good Lord had come to her
one dark night to say: always sing.
They were her own songs to the Lord.
He was with her in her journey.
The bus driver helps the wheelchair on,
passengers (we’re called riders) smile
and make room. The disabled person
greets all and sundry. Then, true,
everyone eyes only their cellphones.
Their own world may not be that large:
yes, Melbourne’s in Australia,
now ask me something about it.
The talk is of crazy shootings,
unsafe campuses and schools;
it’s also of home for Thanksgiving.
Even the Thai restaurant
is festooned for Halloween,
cobwebs, candles in pumpkins.
Children are dressing up, out
trick-or-treating at all hours.
Will I ever pass as American?
I’ll go on stepping into traffic
coming at me the wrong way;
Seattle drivers slow, wave me across.
October-November 2014
*Allen Curnow: ‘Landfall in Unknown Seas’ (1942)
on Tasman’s tercentenary (1642)
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