A mind under this hat

happiness

:)

…Oh Deliver Us!

“Oh deliver us, save us from this homeland of hell!”

Shadowy beings emerged from the dark of night and swarmed the town like a plague, tearing mother from child and husband from wife. Desperate to escape the terror, frantic residents trickled from their homes out on to the streets.

Oblivious to the bewildered child swept up in the torrent of lost and abandoned souls, they surged toward the harbour.

There, supported by the ocean, a mighty vessel offered them salvation.

***

Amidst this blur of nightmarish events her tiny feet moved rhythmically beneath her; carrying her away. Torn from the serenity of her dreams by a violent shriek, Abita had woken to this chaotic unfamiliar world.

Scanning the crowd of nameless faces, she searched for her mother’s comforting all-knowing eyes. Certainty faded. Hope flickered.

They were nowhere to be found.    

Stepping in the footprints of those that had gone before her she boarded the vessel.

Casting shadows on the water as it steered out of the port; sluggishly it drove her further and further away from all she had known.   

Alone and forgotten she lay curled in a ball; her tiny cheek pressed against the surface of the deck.   

Swiftly and in the black of night, like a flock of fallen angles they floated across the sea.

***

  “Oh oceanic mass of blue, uphold us, carry us, deliver us.”

The vessel cradled her. Its frail body; weakened by each relentless blow of the sea. Like the familiar vibration of maternal comfort, the cadence of ocean nursed away her fear.

The ocean was wise. 

The air, thick with salt caressed her face. Rich, dark curls hung mattered around her shoulders. The pink in her cheeks; spoiled by the harsh rays of the sun. Her eyes; wide, dull and all knowing— prematurely tainted by the evils of the world.

Forced to endure the absence of motherly affection, Abita would travel the depths of her memory; a short road once innocent and untouched.

Walking back through her imagination to a blissful childhood, her miniature fingers tingled with the false sense of her mother’s touch.

***

The infinite sky encased them like the dome of a snow globe whilst the curvature of the earth hid what lay beyond the horizon. The heavens sent gifts of rain and the sea gave offerings of food.

Days turned to weeks; weeks to months; months- a life time.

Like the barnacles that adorned the wooden hull, hope of arrival eroded with each passing storm.

***

“Oh bring us to the end! Swiftly now, but ever gently. Save us from the depths of the sea”

Overcrowded with the life that inhabited the deck, finally the hull gave in to torment of the sea. The stern sank beneath the surface. The mighty mass of blue began to summon them beneath its depths.

With each failing effort to keep afloat, infants, their mothers and fathers, dissolved into the ocean. 

Gradually desperate splashes through the water’s surface ceased. Mortal lives faded ended.

Lifeless bodies skimmed the ocean floor.   

***

Perched high on the roof of the cabin, Abita observed the terror of a sea speckled with floundering bodies in safety. She closed her eyes. Clasping her hands together, miniature lips began to mutter a silent prayer.

A thousand bright new stars would grace the sky that night. A thousand souls would rest, a little while at least, for the whole of eternity lay before them.

For them it had just begun.

***

“Oh my people, I am coming. Wait for me”  

Sorted, divided incarcerated. Once bound by the confines of a failing vessel now held captive to the realm of the living, behind a wall of wire.

 

 

The Second Coming - Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

…this is why.

Contrary to critics of postmodern thought,  self-reflexivity can be useful.

Not always.

But Sometimes.

I used to write. Often.

About why my heart hurt when I read of colonial Australian history.

About why it sang when I read the speeches of Australia’s visionaries.

About why I dreamt of one day being able to make a difference.

I even dared to share these thoughts with my peers— passionately, fearlessly and assertively.

Often in in the face of a resounding and collective groan.

Oh the naivety! Beautiful naivety!

Now, absorbed in a world devoid of creativity that is law school, I rarely get the opportunity to articulate what makes me tick.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve still got it.

Sometimes I fear the blissful sound of compassion and of empathy—those things that were so integrally a part of the development of my ethos— are being drowned out by the noise of realism— of pragmatism.

Fuck it.

I’m writing it down.

‘I am a member of the Australian Labor Party because’

When I have a daughter I want her to be born into an Australia that values and cares for the vulnerable.

When I have a daughter I want her to be born into an Australia that sees beauty in diversity.

When I have a daughter I want her to know, that no matter how much money we have, there is an education system capable of providing her with the opportunity to be everything and anything she can be.

When I have a daughter I want her life to be worth more to society than the money she is paid for her labour. I want her to know that she is more than a factor of production.

When I have a daughter I want her to know that her Indigenous sisters have the same life expectancy as her. 

When I have a daughter I want her to be able to marvel at her natural surroundings and have confidence that they will be there for her children and grandchildren.

When I have a daughter, I want her to know that her government plays an active role in the global community— fulfilling our international obligations in assisting the most vulnerable of global citizens.

When I have a daughter, I want her to know that she too, can have a vision for her country. I want her to know, that she too can make a difference.

…these reasons aren’t profound.

Only true.