A triangle of red marks my back where the Darwin sun beams scorched me, today on Stokes Hill Wharf. But, who cares about a burn when we have a duffle bag to fill and then to Express Post by Emergency Sea Plane, to Thursday Island. Working backwards: I’m now at home trying to pack but keen to read one of my birthday books, some Bolano, Neruda or the latest Quarterly Essay.
The plane home was four hours and the passenger to my right was trying hard not to throw up, think about a cigarette or drop his head into my lap. This evening’s sunset was mythical and I read a story, ‘The Boat’ all the way home. The morning was spent on the Wharf and between reading poems and rallying the fish market dwellers as our audience, I was wondering how the AGM for Red Room’s Patron went, today. The ABC were most enthusiastic in Darwin: local and regional radio and poems read over the airwaves. I had a dream of crocodiles and a lot of blood on an anonymous bathroom floor. In the middle of the night there was a Darwin storm with cracks of lightening and thumps of thunder. Already I miss my friends in Darwin and already I want to sit in a waterfall and be amazed that stones and rocks can be such perfect pinks. R
