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ARTS AND CULTURE

Xanana on the wall

  • 26 June 2012

An Adjustment Needed Here The bed on which I lieis scientifically sprungapproved by chiropractors –soft cushionedsheeted in crisp cottonwhite counterpaned                       and blessed from on highby Klimt’s clichéd Kiss. Blazoned across its widtha woven tais –orange and tropical pinksunset stripes night shadowed. Made by a woman –Timor-thincross-legged on concretecanvas-boundto her stick-framed loomXanana on the wallchildren in the drainspoverty’s jackboot in her back.

Fifty Years after Nirje                                                                        Client 1A person with an intellectual disabilitydeveloping ‘creative talents’strokes hard pale crayonon shiny resistant cardboardto make innumerable                                                         barely perceptible                                                                           little lines four hours strokingnothing marks. Client 2A person with an intellectual disabilityin ‘meaningful employment’tears at used plastic bank bagswith blunt awkward cutters ninety minutesfor a cupfulof shredded fiscal secrets. Three cheers for Client 3 !A person with an intellectual disabilityengaging in ‘age appropriate activities’flashes rebellious independencerefusing, at 38, to colour in any morecartoon puppies.

Penance Grove – Monga Forest                                                         How right, to bend, to bow the headbeneath arched frondsto brush the brow with blessed drops,and almost genuflect,when entering Penance Grove.                The boardwalk,foreign in genus and formis humble in its quiet responseto reverent footfall,submitting to the forest’s gentlingof petal, twig and leafascending to fern-spanned apse,saving holy ground.            In verdant graveyard, moss-padded,amputated stumps, lie and lurch -abandoned monuments. Pinkwoods weepand bees intone their requiem.Black-trunked in mourning,rejected tree fernsstand in testament to those gone,backyard blitzed,their destinies stolen,to lace a forest, to age in grace,or host pinkwood seedsin moist velvet crevices. A bittersweet paradiseaccepting its name, forgiving,in slow resurrection.

Baltic Amber                                                                                   

Beautiful, light-eyed Lithuanians. In convent quadrangleswhere naïve 1950’s schoolgirlsgiggled and gawked they strolled together –those honey-haired young women,with unashamed sensuous gracetheir animated conversationstantalisingin secret tongues. Fierce memories of homelandwar-honed ambitionresolute dreamsfixedin gleaming keepsakesof strung golden resin. I saw their tall defiant beauty againin that small audacious countryon the hill of fifty thousand crossesin Trakai’s island castle –   their slumbering burnin Baltic amber.

Tessa McMahon’s main life occupations have been as mother and teacher, with 'frequent theatrical distractions and bursts of writing in various genres along the way'.

She writes: ‘The first poem was written after returning from a visit to family in Timor Leste. The second, arises out of my experience as advocate for my disabled daughter. Nirje’s philosophy of Normalisation from the 60s and 70s encouraged equality, independence, self-worth, community integration, dignity of risk for people with a disability.  Developed further by