until whisked from the earth and into highways of dry wind crossing the continent that went round the world and back again. Trees stopped measuring the season and died slowly in ground bone dry several metres deep. Finches had been the first to swarm into jerking clouds hightailing it out of their hemisphere. In winter orsummer, only the old-fashion homely birds scratched the ground for moisture from long ago.
You could see the white eyes of the old fishermen watching the flowing rivers in their memories, listening to them go on and on, it was like listening to the poetry of a canaryâs song dancing in those minds to sweeten the droughtâ¦
Draw breath, Aunty. Frequently the girl would interrupt her by laying her hand on the old womanâs arm. Life was short. The old woman spoke faster, and was short of breath. The girl was greedy to know exactly what the old woman had to say and nodded repeatedly at her, asking Bella Donna the questions about what makes the world go around. Oblivia needed explanations quickly, not blind fishermen. How do you fly solo? Which way should you run to escape this world? Where do the swans go? No one else knew how to tell her how to shuffle the cards, so what harm was there in believing a mad person? The old woman finally leant forward and whispered into the girlâs ear that the best journey she had taken in all of her travels in the world was with a swan in a sampan. The girl convinced herself that only the mad people in the world would tell you the truth when madness was the truth, when the truth itself was mad. Then the old woman began a new love story, All rivers flow to the sea , and its breath finished when Aunty Bella Donna of the Champions of the earth, who might have been an angel, died.
The Dust Ends
T he night Bella Donna of the Champions died, boobooks called at her passing spirit, and when a swift wind swept through the distant woodlands of eucalypts, the rattling gumnuts could be heard as she travelled away. All night long, butcher-birds flew in circles and sung through the swamp. That was the parish! Traditional. Even first class. The country, finishing off the dead womanâs broken serenade to the swans while the humidity wrapped itself in a heavy haze over the swamp and caught all of the leaves falling from the trees.
Around the swamp, the air was charged up like an electrified cat, always stifling and crowded. Oblivia dreamt the old woman was in the kitchen talking about her life, but her voice was jumping simultaneously between stories about times and places in the world that no longer existed. All dead, just like me now. Extinct. Uninhabitable. She was breathless with excitement. It was as though the old woman still wanted to breathe life into the stories of all those people in her life that she had seen escaping from their lost countries, taken to sea by a swan.
But then, what of her life in the swamp? Our life here , the girl uttered in her sleep. And the reply came out of nowhere. Existence! Just a word echoed from faraway by old Bella Donna â a woman who was too worldly, too immersed; too spread everywhere, and she cried to the girl, I donât know what is happening to me.
Only the girl felt the sadness of losing the old woman forever, whose voice became less afflicted the more distant she became, Well! Can you believe this? Old Bella Donna had just been to the cloud house of a white swan in a Zhongguo city glowing with stars shining like antique lanterns, where the swan was still writing about itself with a quill in its beak, the same poem of missing its home, that it had been writing many centuries ago.
I feel so light now. It was the feeling of sunlight falling through dark stormy clouds embracing the giant granite swans placed all about the Indonesian village of stone carvers. And off she goes again, but instantly returns and tells of falling down through the dusty rays of light that form a sea around the ceiling of an ancient temple. It
You could see the white eyes of the old fishermen watching the flowing rivers in their memories, listening to them go on and on, it was like listening to the poetry of a canaryâs song dancing in those minds to sweeten the droughtâ¦
Draw breath, Aunty. Frequently the girl would interrupt her by laying her hand on the old womanâs arm. Life was short. The old woman spoke faster, and was short of breath. The girl was greedy to know exactly what the old woman had to say and nodded repeatedly at her, asking Bella Donna the questions about what makes the world go around. Oblivia needed explanations quickly, not blind fishermen. How do you fly solo? Which way should you run to escape this world? Where do the swans go? No one else knew how to tell her how to shuffle the cards, so what harm was there in believing a mad person? The old woman finally leant forward and whispered into the girlâs ear that the best journey she had taken in all of her travels in the world was with a swan in a sampan. The girl convinced herself that only the mad people in the world would tell you the truth when madness was the truth, when the truth itself was mad. Then the old woman began a new love story, All rivers flow to the sea , and its breath finished when Aunty Bella Donna of the Champions of the earth, who might have been an angel, died.
The Dust Ends
T he night Bella Donna of the Champions died, boobooks called at her passing spirit, and when a swift wind swept through the distant woodlands of eucalypts, the rattling gumnuts could be heard as she travelled away. All night long, butcher-birds flew in circles and sung through the swamp. That was the parish! Traditional. Even first class. The country, finishing off the dead womanâs broken serenade to the swans while the humidity wrapped itself in a heavy haze over the swamp and caught all of the leaves falling from the trees.
Around the swamp, the air was charged up like an electrified cat, always stifling and crowded. Oblivia dreamt the old woman was in the kitchen talking about her life, but her voice was jumping simultaneously between stories about times and places in the world that no longer existed. All dead, just like me now. Extinct. Uninhabitable. She was breathless with excitement. It was as though the old woman still wanted to breathe life into the stories of all those people in her life that she had seen escaping from their lost countries, taken to sea by a swan.
But then, what of her life in the swamp? Our life here , the girl uttered in her sleep. And the reply came out of nowhere. Existence! Just a word echoed from faraway by old Bella Donna â a woman who was too worldly, too immersed; too spread everywhere, and she cried to the girl, I donât know what is happening to me.
Only the girl felt the sadness of losing the old woman forever, whose voice became less afflicted the more distant she became, Well! Can you believe this? Old Bella Donna had just been to the cloud house of a white swan in a Zhongguo city glowing with stars shining like antique lanterns, where the swan was still writing about itself with a quill in its beak, the same poem of missing its home, that it had been writing many centuries ago.
I feel so light now. It was the feeling of sunlight falling through dark stormy clouds embracing the giant granite swans placed all about the Indonesian village of stone carvers. And off she goes again, but instantly returns and tells of falling down through the dusty rays of light that form a sea around the ceiling of an ancient temple. It
Similar Books
