Menace
Huddled beneath the pines that night,
we’d crept from our houses nearby
I suppose it might have looked as if
we came to gawp and spy.
That was not what brought us out.
Alarmed when the new wife screamed,
we wanted to ask if we could help
but nothing was as it seemed.
Inside, she’d waved a blade about—
I never saw the knife—
her husband claimed he wrenched the thing
from the grip of his frantic wife.
Their lights went out; we women left,
our street grew still again:
an unfinished stillness heavy with fear
and the murmur of troubled men.
Suzanne Edgar
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