Uluru, Ready to Run

To you, stepping up to the line,

Welcome to the Storm Post Office. This letter is posted from Australia, January 1991, in the heart of the southern summer: the red earth baked hot, the sky blue without a single flaw. The envelope is tough burnt-sienna paper, its giant athletic italic title carrying a cream inline shadow; sky-blue track curves swing around the silhouette of an ochre rock, beside a perforated race-number panel and a few olive field labels.

A poet who spent half his life on horseback in Australia once left these lines: “Life is mostly froth and bubble, / Two things stand like stone, / Kindness in another’s trouble, / Courage in your own.” — Adam Lindsay Gordon, Ye Wearie Wayfarer (1867)

On a starting line those two things matter most, and a start needs no command; one look at the sky is enough. Our letters are already in position: run slowly, you do not have to win. When you feel like writing, put your name on the race number and hand it to us.

On your marks, get set, go

Storm Post Office

January 1991 · Australia