There’s more to this relationship between old and new here than I had imagined. It’s not simply a case of the past reflected in the present; sometimes the present is reflected in the past. It’s reflexive, overlapping, transitory… and today is only ever the point at which we find ourselves between where we’ve been, and where we are going.
His eyes were shut the whole time. There was no hat, or case, or jacket at his feet to collect our small offerings. It was almost like we weren’t there at all – or maybe he wasn’t. It sounded like he had plenty to say though, somewhere, to someone, but maybe words just weren’t the right medium to let that out.
…A short break from the in-betweens of Melbourne.
Ghost tree, NSW.
The complex geometry of urban living support technologies…
Even here we can dream, imagine the soft sound of leaves as they whisper in the wind…
I suppose there were clouds here once, twisting their slow dance as they merged and faded. I suppose there was sky too; sometimes blue, sometimes grey, but always changing. Maybe there was even something soft, green, swaying gently underfoot as thousands of tiny tendrils of grass reached upwards, shifting and changing to follow the light and the warmth.
Now, we have just right angles of neon colours, random adjectives and characters to capture our dreams and desires. We have refractions and reflections of blue, hinting at what we might see, if only we would stop to look up. Underfoot is unforgiving, unbending, immovable, immutable. This city is something tired and exciting all at the same time, and I don’t know whether to smile and dance or just turn away at the sight and non-sight of it all.
Are they trying to keep the light out, or keep it in?
Follow the yellow brick road…
Don’t you think, sometimes, that we just seem… small? In comparison to the mechanisms of our own maintenance, the solid bricks and the ragged rooftops, and the set-square webs of pipes, cables, drains?
Don’t you think, sometimes, that we just seem… pale? Reduced in colour and intensity and vibrance and pattern, faded against billboards, banners, neon?
Have we swallowed ourselves up?
Hidden in our own lives?
Another brittle day, the air hanging in shards away from the light. Inside the light, there’s warmth, stillness. I see people crossing the road just to feel it on their skin. Or avoiding it, or waiting for it, or just feeling what’s left behind…
Timothy Moss 