on the edges of some cities
you can stare out from the last house
literally the very last house
and see the wild nothing right there
right in front of you
you can see, literally
the terrible empty wilderness that surrounds you
in Ankara you can gaze out from the end of the city
and see a bare, razorback mountain
with thunderclouds gathering above it
over desolate unforgiving Anatolian plains
that have swallowed armies and humbled conquerors
across those vast sere rolling wastes
stretching out into the distance
out all the way into the heart of Asia
and in Canberra you can look out
from the last mundane, red brick house
and the few eucalyptus trees surrounding it
and see nothing but a harsh, barren, hot expanse
that is old
older than any gaze that has set eyes on it
red, hot, deadly…
stretching out into a haunting red wilderness
stretching back into the dreamtime
of our ancestors
in Arabia, the towering cities
those monuments to hubris and vanity
end on the edges
of a sea of sand
a hot unwelcoming desert
that engulfs, oppresses, dominates
in those undulating yellow waves
that were once the life-giving beds of churning oceans
where swam great beasts long extinct
now lost in eons past
when you’re there on the edge of your world
when you see where your world ends
and the unfathomable begins
when you stare into the not-meant-for-you
when you feel that melancholy dread
the terror of gazing upon a universe that surrounds you
without wanting you
that embraces you
without needing you
that fixes its gaze on you
coldly
without caring for you
when your words cease and the chatter ends
when the music falls silent
and the world of people, things, duties
jobs, commitments, cares,
when the world of little victories and little calamities
ends right there
in that gaze
when everything stops
in one moment, one breath
everything ends
and you see that hideous, mesmerizing, terrible
void
and you just stand there
silent, still, alone
knowing... just knowing
nothing will ever be the same again
somehow you know
no, you don’t know
but something in you knows
that you will either enter
or stay
but you will never look away again.
