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It's as though it's suddenly turned winter, the way the earth is covered over and the grey stretch of ash is drawn up to its chin like a blanket. And though it's day, the bird-less quiet is a kind of night, and everything we ever thought we knew has been turned upside down, the first now last, and the last first.
One hundred and eighty years on, we walk the Myall Creek Memorial Way ... there's a quietness amidst our camaraderie ... murdering rage and gall are quieted, smell of gun powder spent, yet screams that cried that stark cold night still sigh amidst the sway ...
The church is an old man with heavy robes. Heavy lidded, head bowed. Stooped. We are twisting, clutching, writhing. Pointing fingers, fists stamping tables or shaking in fury. But the old man is deaf and blind and besides, his head is low, and he sits within a prison cell.
The concurrent symptoms for this poem: vague staring into mid air; take to their bed; not eating or drinking regularly; not toileting; not responding. Imagine a child without light in their eyes. It is not a flash back. It is now. It is the Australian people.
Guided by divers and ropes, via a birth canal, from the womb of the cave in a dark mountain, through the tightness of crevasses. Hold your breath ... surrender fear ... heave in the labour from death to life. Why is it disasters create heroes?
The PM's poker face flickers like a faulty switch, he comes across as dense or kitsch when he obfuscates and dickers ... Get your righteous on, dear Tony; and feed all the forsaken to your economic Kraken conjured by your faith a'phony, knowing that your right to rule is your equal right to maim, and the discourse runs the same: the worker is a tool.