longingEvery summer solstice I dream of an open-air hill-top terrace paved by Gaudi's daughterwith wildly coloured earthenware and gemscollected from the ocean's ancient floor.The treasureand everyday itemsfrom many ships,dashed to piecescenturies before,now breathe againbeneath my feet. A table for two rests on this elaborate mosaic in the midst of an exotic garden. A vast expanse of water glistens on my left, stretching as far as the eye can see. In every other direction the most marvellous landscapes shimmer in the sun. The panorama changes from essentially Australian, to Elysian, to a collage of South America & somewhere in an English myth, or it might become Africa as imagined by Cynthia Nolan and Rimbaud, or Scandinavia with a dash of the sub-Antarctic, and every once in a while there are surreal encounters of time, space and textual media as pages & canvases are remembered and reinvented, to merge with the light and life in which I am immersed.The plants in the hill-top garden are different every year. Sometimes there are large leafy trees, sometimes there is lavender and honeysuckle, or there might be lilies and love-in-the-mist, or cornflowers, or poppies and freesias, and the reddest blood-red tulips, fields and fields of sunflowers, tall and radiant and strong, and there are,occasionally, orange trees and mangoes and wildly effervescing orchids,or so many roses that the fragrance makes me weak with joy at the generous extravagance of it all. And then I imagine the chairs. There are only ever two - one for God and one for me. Sometimes they are the deepest green with finely engraved markings that reveal the bronze beneath. And the cushions have a thick nap of blue-black-purple and tassels of real gold. Tiny petals of scarlet silk have been carefully sewn around the edges, and at the centre of each bloom is a single sequin of fragile jet. The tablecloth is plush velvet and, again, it is green, but variegated so that it might really be moss. The fringe is soft as it brushes against my legs. The cloth is finely embroidered and appliqued with words and images that are so beautiful & so personal that I can hardly bear the care that has gone into this setting. I gaze at episodes from my life transformed into the art of the cloth. I see animals and fish and birds and everything I have ever loved on the earth; and the sky and angels and all of the heavens are there; and there are lines of poetry that have been finely woven into the fabric - they shine with meanings that transport me to dreamscapes from my past, and my future, and some that are so current,so full of this very moment, that I never want to leave their presence. The large round cups are almost translucent. Their "full moon" surface is overlaid with mother of pearl. The saucers are indigo-navy and made of a sea-shell I've never seen before. They're so finely crafted and seem like fragile china, but I know they are not. The tea smells wonderful - of cinnamon and fine tobacco and some other fragrance that eludes me. Scones, steaming with heat, lay nestled in a cotton cloth. The cream is thick and fresh, and almost the colour of mutant albino rainbow trout. Jam, full of ripe strawberries, has been piled into a silver bowl, engraved with nimbs & children, with the sunand all her sisters. Another overflows with dark cherry conserve. My heart beats expectantly.Someone is walking towards methrough this day of endless blue.And I know it is God.My sigh of reliefis so immenseas to make it seemthat an entire oceanhas inhabited my beingand, after drawing back,now breaks upon the shore.Diane Caney, 2000