Ian C. Smith: ‘Word Whisperer’
Word Whisperer
Burgeoning morning on his longed-for summer holiday, that universal hope birdsong beginning, a susurrus of surf, no phone, computer, or babble of messages; tantalising words have whispered since 3 a.m. Revolving a biro, he writes in the third person, his past self someone else, lips moving, crosses out inadequacies, the caravan a cocoon, smell familiar, apt words avoiding capture. Any prompt; reading foxed anthologies, a cello’s sombre notes, reverberations from the vanished back streets of youth, death’s ubiquity, the luminosity of sculptured angels, shreds of understanding, giants, ghosts, that endless depository of remembrance childhood, a quivering wren ventured inside bewildered by books, a dolphin pod sighted from a deserted beach, newspaper spreadeagled on a fence, the remains of lost friendship sifted gazing through glass stained by rain, might trigger a cadence junkie listening to his heart’s murmur, his, a love story, however strange, daydreaming of…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins