&
you


On a mountain's peak
a circular plateau accommodates
an elaborately fashioned garden, replete
with an exotic terrace styled by Gaudi's daughter. 

Even at such an altitude
only an occasional breeze 
ripples through grass and trees
making leaves jostle
with patches of blue  sky
to form a crazy mosaic
in your eyes.
                     There is calm
                here; utter 
               abandonment
with no room for fear
of things past.


Across a chair 
you sprawl.
An open-air platform  
lattice            vines
                            heavy with grapes ...    
             The tablecloth is plush velvet &
 green, but variegated so that it might really be
         moss.  
Its fringe is soft as it brushes against your legs.  

Freshly brewed tea cries
cinnamon and fine tobacco 
towards the sky ... 
Newly baked bread rolls, 
carefully plaited,
sprinkled with caraway seeds,
  and steaming with heat, 
        lay nestled in a cotton cloth 
waiting to be broken.
A finely engraved bowl
piled high 
with dark cherry conserve 
 overflows ...
 Crimson syrup seeps 
beside your hands.
2 goblets dance 
with mother-of-pearl ...


A vast expanse of sea glistens on your left, 
                       while in every other direction 
the most marvellous landscapes 
shimmer in the sun.
The panorama changes
from essentially Australian, 
to Elysian, to a collage 
of South America & somewhere
in an English myth, or it might become Africa
as imagined by Cynthia Nolan and Rimbaud,
or Scandinavia with a touch of the sub-Antarctic
and every once in a while
there are surreal encounters of time, 
space and textual media
     as pages & canvases are remembered
          and reinvented, 
            to merge with the light 
        and life in which 
you are immersed.