Sandra Sarala
Subverse Protest Time Capsule
from an Offshore Zeit-Traveller
PRESENT
every Berlin winter I light my pale jade Kachelofen with books
found on the street, discarded, no longer treasured
cremated in the service of apartment heating
coal-fired, not to be made illegal till at least 2026 nor its heavily subsidised fuel phased out till 2035
no, don't believe the German government's greenwash (nor anyone's)
their power of propaganda learned from forefathers
who also burned books they did not dote on
who in turn spawned spies creating massive binders of neighbours' intimate movements, findings
which proved impossible to shred overnight as changing winds churned up a fall of wall fall
instead of cover-ups
or uncoverings
I make new books with the covers
where it is tradition to destroy the past and have it haunt us
the tiled oven flames make screwed-up-ball ash ghosts of authors' hard efforts
tearing too, red hot through stick-bones of tight-twisted multiple pages, the fossilised lignite ignites
glowing oh so cosy, radiant through the slow-release brick and tiles
the optimum spot for snuggling up to read, not those littery lettered skeletons, instead
today's beloved magazines, paperbacks and tomes
PAST
in Welly '92 our Unemployed Training Trust big class field trip was
to do Alexander Turnbull and National Library too in a journalism students' learning clusterfuck:
two buildings, one morning
how to use their revered bookly, photographic and numerous other whispering archive resources
how to edge wide-eyed round the Tiriti which most of us then called the Treaty
how to be worthy researchers for all our days ahead
returning to the National, I scoured records for the old Racing Conference Building where I lived
its curved Victoria-Wakefield corner glass made to measure and imported in one piece from Italy
long before the magical energy-hungry internet, going to the National is what you did
another time, on a long-haul trip home when that was still possible
I met an old friend for a glorious summer lunch in the sheltered plaza adjacent
thinking for sure I'd be able to come back again
FUTURE
it may seem nothing to do with the future now but when making to leave in the past I ditched stuff,
talismans of personal history – books, records; talismans heavy or hard to store or transport – for
future me had no idea what could or might be counted in time ahead as irretrievably lost
and here I am there
etching a little reminder message into the hard monumental foresight wall
saying, you never have any idea what future yous will need or want |
