Unmanned | Page 9

fallen along?suburban driveways. Observe the birds?investing in the green shares of September.?This side of the documentary we?view in armchair safety, Our Planet:?a well heeled cloud pads across?the moons surface, under the?vast drift-net of the night tuna boats?swing light probes about the arresting?waters another country claims.?David Attenborough journeys through?deserts to break the ancient limestone?tablets, and proclaim that fossils?are the visual memory of stone.
We observe in awe the Environmental?Mysteries and ask, is the suns bald glare?through the Glory Hole truly the?pointing finger of God? Laurence Olivier?puts on his final mask, looking?deathly, Tell my friends that I?miss them, and then fades from the?ramparts. I name two from the camp?of Good Attitude, builders of the beauty?of this planet the givers, not takers?who direct our gaze upward from the?burning footlights of the closing century,?toward the language of our Common Future.
II
The seeing wears away the seer:?twelve years further on Voyager 2 putts?out through the pinball solar?system, past Neptune and beyond the?reach of time. Another day in?the round and the cliche of uneventful?incident has not yet arrived.?The balloon that is so majestic on?the plump air tumbles as heavy?as a plumb-bob onto the countryside,?trailing its fifty seconds of life?huddled to impact. The cattle?scattered, the sky did not change but?released names into the wispy?afternoon. Then all is as it was?before the tragic flight, except?the calm that betokens fear.?And clouds rich as coalmines gathered?from the chutes of mountainsides, over?the belts of grainfield to boost?the corporate climates, and to market?each end of the world gyrally.
A blotting paper sky, the soft?tear of thunder, then lightning. Who?would demand of the wise a word?to steer by? Nostradamus throws his?hands in the air after the event:?Mark well my words, I told you so.?Backward we look upon his bag?of tricks, and with each new calamity?a surreal rabbit lifts before your eyes.?Ribbed streets! Pneumatic heartbeat!?Prophecy is the Art of Boredom?for one who cannot stand his own company?from one moment to the next.?He pulls the hat trick, feigns the?future, argues the task of his breath?wearily on its way. Some ravel?dreams to cats cradles in whose?uninhabited solitude, slowly as a yawn,?wish to pull forth the superstrings.?Call it a living, this space?between meetings. Those encirclements?that bind us together temporally.
The distant applause of rain?and the weekend screaming of a girl.?The screech of a trains brake?as if a fire were being extinguished.?The exiles brain is a frozen, grey?sea-storm; from wave to wave?he stares down the barrel of the moon.?It is morning and the sun spreads?over Nicaragua slow as the slitting?of a throat. Consider Ernesto Cardinal?as he rises from his bed, how?he stacks his images practical as planks.?Ay, the roses blood dark as diesel!
VI
He will come urgent as a food?riot. Beware the man who sheds tears of?mercury. His cough alone will thin?out the ozone. He grips oceans with?the black fingers of trawlers.?His voice is a slow leakage in the Third?World Night. Beware the Waste-Broker.?He comes to paint your wellsprings?ivory black and chrome yellow. You will?know him by his industrial oath:?$40 a drum! yes, only $40 a drum!?Senegal, Nigeria, West Africa,?the sun dangerous as a forty-gallon drum.?Drums stacked on rotting pallets?in the back yard of tropical forests.?Drums swollen like the bellies?of starved children with toxic waste.
The Berlin Wall is falling down,?each chunk a souvenir sponsored by?Smirnoff. Who was that poet who?whispered, Death is a maestro from?Germany. Away in America,?Raymond Carver, as the provinces of?his body revolted, gasped our?daily losses from ruined lungs. It?comes down to love, he said.?What we hear is anger in its orbit.
Falling piano notes. The last?of the rain down brickwork. Guttering?full. Something like sounds of?water hitting a serving dish. A couple?of taps. Its that hour. A train,?of course, fading in and out of suburbs.?Time running off everywhere.?George Moore shuts his green door?against the catholic glare of Ireland.?A sense of things erased. The whole?night sliding down. Lamplight.?Gumleaves as strips of plastic bright?through a casual breeze. What can?later researchers make of this,?the Age of Rapidity? Things made which?had small use then cast aside.?The mirage of modern love. Something?swapped for something else. Made better.?And that charge of energy?varicose-veined as lightning, a little?kindness left to hover, unquestioned??We know it as we get older.
V
O Bougainville! Flying foxes?plentiful as copper, gone in a waste?of tailings from the Island,?forever. The most pure black race on?earth in jungle fatigues armed?against the ravages of the Corporates,?wading the chemical rivers,?a cackle of gunfire to make the ABC?stringers dispatch. But not the?words of Randolph Stow: VISITANTS:?My body is a house and some?visitor has come. My house is echoing?with the footsteps of the visitor.?My house is bleeding to death.?O Bougainville! Your burnished blood?flows from the split chest of?Treasure Island. An opencast land?and an overcast sky. I think?of my mother and her breastbone?snapped back. A row of Xs marks it.
The sky: one vast, curving blue?wave. Blue was; then painted itself?into Time, sang Rafael Alberti?to the Bay of Cadiz. The day?a slow melting cube of