Jeri Kroll
Since the change
Since the change, we realise the time has come to explore. We discover that maps are not for sale. We know that watches don’t tell the time, or not the time we need. We force our eyes open to the lie of the land.
Since the change, we head out alone or in pairs, take our own food and water, carry what clothes we need. Pay attention to essentials like our names. Leave the past waving from the verandah. We don’t tell the authorities where we’ve gone. We don’t know, but we find a road taking shape through hazy valleys and wetlands whirring with birds, which never hesitate in their own language.
Since the change, we stumble past rocks inscribed with signs that only those who know the code can read, until we face a blank sweep of desert, and recognise the emptiness inside us. Others know how to cross and live, see what might be hidden. Our only choice is feeling out a road, as if it were a sentence we’ve started writing, the rest of which shimmers in the distance, the right words over the next rise.