Existence warms my skin

09 September 2008

Sunday I've bitten a soft apple of a morning when blood and mood jigger the radio of my mind, turning it in and out of the band of unaccountable happiness. What have I forgotten that I can stand to smile when greyness drips from the lank trees, dampens the walls of apartment blocks, and breathes through the air — when everyone's defeat, my own as well, hums unheard in channels down the street? Then, though nothing apparent has changed, the day is now graceful as a salmon gum, the curling mist arranged in an elegant suit, and the content of all that myriad of frequencies is ignored for my small, present task of walking to church and smiling. As the parrots call out, full of their song, I fight this simplifying, but find its renunciation more true for a Sunday morning, like turning off the TV news. At my pew I kneel, slide in and join the congregation, cold rocks in the stream, black planets in the far constellation of a blazing blue star. A shudder in its iron core then supernova. For that great light, no time's required to soar any distance to where we wait beneath our ambiguous symbol — life, yes and death; love, yes and hate in the nails. We take communion, a litany of faces, and each unveils new need and mystery in upturned eyes. 'Body of Christ', 'Amen', and I turn to go back down the aisle and through the door, thinking of that vast flash of pure extent: how in timelessness it steps the length of space, how existence in so other a mode warms my skin as I walk back along the foggy road, bathing me closer than my clothes. The light, sourceless; the sun, known only by the fact of sight. Peter Coghill is a physicist from Sydney. His poetry has appeared in Meanjin and Blue Dog.

ARTS AND CULTURE

Existence warms my skin

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