Christmas Day in Australia
The air this morning is full of the heavy scent of flowers
that I cannot see, that I know but cannot recall.
The day is very young but bright, the heat sharp
and aggressive. The day is full of an emptiness
that arises when everything is abandoned
for secular lounge-rooms that have hints
of some mythology that is entirely faithless
and hopeless, that says “today there’s be no despair”,
and people gather around prawns and salad,
cold meats and cold beers and talk about tv shows,
music and comedy, assiduously avoiding meaning,
overt mythology, talk of religion, politics and sex.
Today will be different, Uncle Ernie
will not get drunk and ramble, that sister-in-law
will, for once, countenance not being the centre of attention,
and dad and grandpa will not argue.
Churches fill with people
who manufacture hope and holiness,
its shaky edifice held together with the hammer
of words, the glue of music, and painted bright
with smiles, slapped over secrets, like slapping your brother’s shoulder,
that nobody in their right mind would ever reveal.
But today, nothing is required of me,
no “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”.
Today I am alone, even my wife’s in a different room,
and today we go on, knowing today is just a day,
no different except for its blindingly bright heat,
the day the Earth reminds us that
it’s the height of Summer, that astronomical
feature that some call Solstice.
Some things are true in their own way,
but other things are true in every way.
