I remember deplaning by steps onto the tarmac,<\/p>\n
and then stopping halfway to the terminal,<\/p>\n
looking around at that Fokker Friendship,<\/p>\n
its props now as quiet as the outback air,<\/p>\n
still not quite believing I\u2019d been up so high<\/p>\n
in that machine, strapped in, drowned by sound,<\/p>\n
the city, the towns, the farmland, the occasional<\/p>\n
stands of eucalyptus, the scrub, even an open-cut<\/p>\n
coal mine looking up at me from below,<\/p>\n
its wide maw revealing trucks and earth movers<\/p>\n
and scattered hard-hatted ant-people.<\/p>\n
My oldest sister waved to me from behind glass,<\/p>\n
but she was no miracle though it had been months<\/p>\n
since I\u2019d last seen her.<\/p>\n
I looked from the airplane to the sky,<\/p>\n
as if I now had myself another home,<\/p>\n
blue as ocean, feathered with one or two rainless clouds.<\/p>\n
It felt as if the real journey was over<\/p>\n
and though I\u2019d never been in this place before,<\/p>\n
family made it familiar.<\/p>\n
But I had no people in that vast expanse above me.<\/p>\n
Just me, reading a magazine, sipping a Coke, looking out the window.<\/p>\n
It was the first time in my life when I was neither son nor brother.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John Grey I remember deplaning by steps onto the tarmac, and then stopping halfway to the terminal, looking around at that Fokker Friendship, its props now as quiet as the outback air, still not quite believing I\u2019d been up so high in that machine, strapped in, drowned by sound, the city, the towns, the farmland,… <\/p>\n