Meeting mortality
Cuneiform tablet
What can no longer betouched—the aged skin, the rare,rests in a muted light, in a spotlight—
short print runs, handmade thingsin a cave of black partitions, glass echoesof the old museum and the walkthroughs
housing phosphorescent rocksin that labyrinthine place gone to angledsteel and here
the Beat poets, botanicain nineteenth-century inks, a Torah scrolland an ancient notepad of clay. The wedges
signify stock whose descendantswere skinned for the scroll under glassor for a codex named
for a mountain. On the third floorunder the State Library’s dome,by a roped-off spiral stair
the indentations in the clay recallthe press of a sharpened reed.Tablets of this size were also used
for travel inventories and sacrificiallists. They hardened in fireor sun. This palm pilot was stacked
for burning. Framed against the darkin a precise atmosphere it is preservedunder glass. I cannot deposit my oil
in its grooves, nor weigh its matterin a glove. Three clasps hold itlike a jewel.
Mary of Magdala
if the hunger remainsthat held herand the oldest stories do not concurshe is painted, a candle in a mirror, one handon a skull
if the book she holds—let’s not assumewe know which bookit is—openson a languageas quick as the nematodes that cling to rootsbeneath the first blanket of soilwhen the whole busy world of decomposingdark and denseis—under the rain—a welcomechain of being
if she rests against a stonewhere ants climb, intent as angelson a ladderthat inclines between earth and sky
and if all that cannot be touched falls in clumpslike spitfires on an oil-stained driveit is the beginningof a lossthat makes things possible—four treesgrow around her words—we see in iconsshe holds a flask of ointment and an egg
Mortal life
for Robert Adamson
This is the wildthing that turnsto loam, the seal pup
dead on the shore,a fish caughtin a crevice of rock
when the tide ebbs.The wind shakesthe cabin. The sea
is gathered in, pulled upin white snatchesthat break over
tidal pools.There are rabbitsin the scrub, a cormorant
on the rocks. This isthe woman with unkempthair, in a room
that is forgotten.It is not a basement.It is not an attic.
She will not be consumedin a fire setby madness. It is
the priest’s holeno longer used,the bushranger’s cave,
the feel of a placethat might be men’sbusiness—if the warning
signs were known—the disorienting polis,the agora of the soul
where mortal thingsmeet, the dam where a herondips her bill.
Melbourne-based Anne Elvey holds honorary appointments at Monash University, Trinity College and MCD University of Divinity. She is author of Stolen Heath (Melbourne Poets Union, 2009), Claimed by Country (PressPress, 2010) and Bent toward