The Sun Worshippers

Say Goodbye.

There is no greater act of worship

Than tasting ice cream on your lips,

The Sun as our only witness to judge

Us and this altar we call a bench,

Your hand gripping mine like a prayer

As we listen to the universe crash 

Upon the beach, that eternal song 

Known only to our people and our

Old language: mumbling, muttering

From one dusty syllable to another,

Words unspoken, words unconquered,

Dictated from our dementia deathbeds,

Words waking bodies without memory,

Words waking bodies that weep,

Words waking bodies that

Worship the Sun.

Our bodies are dancing 

Like wipers on a windshield.

There will always be enough distance

For you and your strange idols

Between my chest and yours.

There will always be enough distance

For you and your strange God

Between my lips and yours.

There will always be enough distance

For your motherland and mine

Between my postcode and yours.

Our backs are no longer surfaces

For our ancestors to sleep on,

But our spines now swell like rice terraces.

Our faces are no longer grasped by hands

But by a thousand closed wings,

Flightless in their suffering.

Our tears baptise the earth like 

Falling bombs, leaving little caverns 

Beneath our feet. 

But here I am,

A prisoner of this beach.

The ocean has swallowed the Sun,

And memories, like tall ships crossing

The water, get shipwrecked on the shore,

And I must gather all the fragments, all the debris,

And make from them castles, cities, Commonwealths,

And Centrelink offices, Kebab shops and crackhouses,

And I claw at the sand, trying to unearth the Sun

Buried underneath this numb necropolis named Sydney,

But all I found was your breathing body waiting,

And I wipe off the ice cream from your lips,

And you ask me, as if to God’s ear,

“Do you know the name of the Sun?” 

And I take your shoulders and I shake your face

And I wait and wait for an answer,

But all I find is breath, nothing but breath.

Let the universe know,

That the Sun has risen to judge us,

Fire is devouring fire in beautiful worship,

And every saint and sinner is out on the street,

Like cockroaches greeting farewell to each other:

Say goodbye to the bus stops that once knew people,

Say goodbye to the motorways and their motionless memories, 

Say goodbye to the pokies and the pubs and their poverty,

Say goodbye to the postcodes and the parking lots,

Say goodbye to the servoes and the bottle-oes,

Say goodbye to the aged care homes and their prisoners,

Say goodbye to the suburbs and their hellish sprawl,

Say goodbye to the Hiluxes and the Utes, those heartbroken families, 

Say goodbye to the telephone poles and their little crucifixions, 

Say goodbye to the nation’s 20 million balding heads,

Say goodbye to the Hi-Vis-coloured dreams of our generation,

Say goodbye to the skyscrapers chewed by fire like wax candles,

Say goodbye to the shopping malls, those ugly concrete colossi,

Say goodbye to the cities, buildings bleached white like lifeless coral,

Say goodbye to the local parks, and their graffitied toilet stalls, 

Say goodbye to the benches where boys go to die in human sacrifice,

Say goodbye to the beach which follows you wherever you are, 

Say goodbye to this sunburnt country, 

Say goodbye to our bodies, which crumble like icebergs to the sea.

We worship the Sun not because it gives us light,

But because it has given us a shadow. 

Let the universe know,

That even in the perishing of the final star,

There is no greater act of worship

Than sharing your breath

With all the living.