Two Poems

THE ANZAC MEMORIAL

Published in the Ibis Head Review, 2016

The building was in Hyde Park and I had passed it twice before,

It was chance that took me on a hot Sunday there,

I climbed the steps,

To a silent church,

And it hit me with a dawn of gigantic weight, astonishment and horror,

Every continent at war.

I stood at the edge of a granite wreath,

And through a circle, cut from above,

I saw the bronze, slain, long limbed male,

Lain naked on his shield,

Arms at rest across his sword.

Instantly, I thought back to myths of early classroom,

Norsemen and Spartans,

I saw the figures carry him;

Three women, down below.

Rayner Hoff, an Englishman who lived in Australia, was the sculptor,

The piece was called Sacrifice,

He sculpted, with his students and assistants, this and several other figures,

Nurses, medics and infantrymen,

On the outside of the building.

He had both reason and qualification,

In 1916 and 1917, he fought in France.

Opposition from leading Catholics; Michael Sheehan, archbishop of Sydney, Archbishop Kelly, Francis O’Donnell, and later, Cardinal Norman Gilroy,

Prevented two more masterpieces,

Victory and Crucifixion,

From being installed on the East and Western faces,

Michael Sheehan said this place was “intended for Protestants”.

I am ashamed at the Irish names of the culprits.

No matter – warriors that die in battle, breathe again,

Valkyries descend,

Lifeless wrists lift up, bloodied fingers bend,

Drape arms around necks and shoulders,

Press warm skin on cold faces, cry,

Touch flesh,

Dig breasts into a muddy side,

Raise man on shield and every other of his kind,

To Valhalla, and watch him wake in thunder and indignant joy - Einherjar,

Mighty, fearless dweller with Odin, who does not need to cast an eye on bastard priests who have disowned him.

Yet, as righteous as these stories hold,

The truth is more, because it’s real.

Men who knew not nor wanted war, suffering,

Norse gods nor stone palaces of remembrance,

Caught flesh on barbed wire, amid tactics of trial and error,

In the mists of mustard gas and exploding foreign soil,

They died and were buried.

The Anzac memorial is a gentle place,

It tells all sides,

And within, a mind can occupy a picture;

The shock of scale carved on the walls, the dead incarnate, the stars on the ceiling,

Giddy imaginings brought to earth by three women bearers,

Who stand, at first unseen,

Beneath the weight of the heavy bronze shield.

A mass of peace, carried for years,

Slow, through paths of sadness turned to stone by grief,

Near the dim, echoing, borderlands of Elysian fields.

PRIMROSES FOR MY GRANDMOTHER

We visited St Luke’s Hospital, my mother and brother,

The two neighboring kids sometimes, in the hours after school,

Only, my mother left us in the halls,

On the pretext we would bring in germs,

So, bored, we sat waiting, playing games,

Too young for homework.

I knew my grandmother, she lived in sight,

From our back door, I watched her walking in the fields,

Against a backdrop of mountains, low sun and trees,

I called to her and waved,

She made bread

And kept the farm in old age.

Her interest in us I felt much stronger than common love, shown by the aged to their descendants,

I was the first grandchild Irish born, mild and curious,

My brother was fire; I was water.

We followed her around outside,

Doing odd jobs, droving hens,

And raced in from howling winds, driving rain, laughing

To her dark kitchen.

Her own sons had long gone,

Emigrated to the States, all young,

Natives of the New World now,

Who lived in cities with their wives,

And countless cousins who chewed bubblegum,

They sent us sweets and plastic toys,

Clothes we wore once.

Before I was born, my grandparents, with my mother, visited Chicago,

They took photos, went for dinner,

And put the whole family in a room together,

But, afterwards, in a vacant place,

Where lilac buds had yet to break into first leaf,

My grandmother cried and watched entranced,

Vapor trails of jets cross faint winter skies,

All bound for America.

Syl, the eldest, left at twenty one,

Only Brian held out as long,

The push came with newborns,

Contacts dripping wealth came home,

Held court in locals,

Told young men tall tales,

And off they went, from Syl to John (the last),

The years passed,

And to this point we have come.

I was in class when my father knocked at the door,

I packed my bag and followed him out to the car

He told my brother and I, ‘Your grandmother has died. It would be good of you and you would be good boys to visit the Church and say a prayer.’

We sat tight at the back though every pew was empty,

Shadows fell at angles and I heard knocking from the tabernacle,

We lit a candle,

I remember not crying, I don’t know why I didn’t;

I was sad, no doubt, and I had cried for simpler things.

The funeral got delayed as the family trickled home,

The rest of the week we took off from school even though Easter holidays had already gone,

There were no presents this time, nor cousins,

Nor rainclouds,

Instead the sun shone,

And we waited, ate, slept and helped out on the farm.

We were moving cattle from the field below up to new grass,

The day was warm in short sleeve shirt and white pants, dirtied a little at their cuffs,

Summer smells of furze and primrose blew from the ditch walls of the lane,

I picked a pale yellow flower from the ditch;

Orange center pressed to my nose, my lips,

All these things too have passed,

And the years since.