i had a dream

Last night I had a strange and vivid dream. It was about Australia. And this is what I saw . . .

There was red soil and cobalt skies and white girdles of gum trees with elegant limbs and fingertip gumleaves.

There were waterholes and harbours and rockpools by the ocean, with white patches of reflection from the sun.

There were cities with flower-drenched parks and hot air balloons over lakes and elegant buildings and monsters and clowns and beautiful people at Mardi Gras.

There were lovers entwined and elderly people in shades of black and white, standing by cabins on the beach.

There were angry rapids and churning beaches with sand-strips so white and so hot, they are impossible to cross.

There were gentle inlets and trickling creeks, thick green rivers that move like lava with overhanging ropes where children can scream and leap and fall into depths too emerald to fathom.

There were tiny islands dropped into limpid green waters like pikelets on a hot plate, coral banks with swarming angel fish of colour that only children can truly know.

There were thick tropical rainforests and deep woodlands of pine, silent and strong.

There were children on bikes, tearing past sugar cane fields, ablaze against the night sky.

There were snow-capped mountains with quiet pine lodges and endless scapes of bushland with drovers on rearing horses, galloping amongst national parks with peaks and cliff drops over enormous expanses of wilderness - such grandeur and raw beauty, one’s eyes cannot hold it without weeping.

That was my dream. And it made me proud.