Imaginary Countries: The Real World

In the real world lovers part at morning with a kiss and look back longingly before they pass from sight. They go insouciant to work and smile at times; their life’s Vivaldi. Others bring what poetry they can into a life by counting days until employment comes again. They look at cherries in the fruit store and imagine biting in. They look so good. Children break from singing in the drill hall, burst outside to toss their frisbees in the park. A boy plays Satie on the piano; two Americans embrace as traffic whispers up the drive. They are embarking for the real world’s farthest shore. In the real world someone signs petitions every moment, tidies other people’s trash and greets another who is loved by someone else. This is how the real world copes with being economics, mathematics and ecology and botany and waiting for the bus. Costumed people earn their living slipping from the real world to persuade us to buy moon-cakes, supple skin and perfect hair. We smile to see them aping us. Gymnorhina tibicen swoops low and boasts her turf: the children run and shout out, ‘Magpie’ while the bird recalls the day in mimic song; order then restored, she dines alfresco on their scraps. And while we watch Magritte’s sky turn El Greco, roofs de Chirico beneath the plastic clouds, a plane is pasted on a sudden patch of blue.