The New Building
At first they bring out a wire screen
as if the old house were to be put down,
a fallen racehorse that cannot be seen
to die; and then there are mechanical beaks
that peck at the walls and window-frames
and unpick memories of happy weeks
or years someone once lived beneath the broken roof.
Then trucks like a funeral procession
carry away the rubble and tiles, waterproof
no more. Another mechanical jaw
comes to gouge at the earth, digging
down through layers of fossil and ore
as in an open-cut mine, before the gaping holes
are filled again by concrete poured from a hose.
Stacks of boards and planks arrive, as well as metal poles,
and for days the air is filled with a sound
that could be mistaken for a shoot-out
among gangsters, as round after round
fired from nail-guns strike the wooden beams
which are then assembled into a structure
resembling an office or prison, it seems.
Neighbours gather to comment on what they see
as an eyesore, a blot, an intrusion
on their living space, a plain monstrosity—
but their comments and complaints make no difference.
The new building grows. Cranes attend,
bowing like waiters with studied deference,
and the neighbours, who have nothing to share
except their complaints, continue to complain,
while the shadow of the new development there
spreads on the ground. Balconies
and windows are attached to the blank walls.
It is only natural that everyone agrees
in those conversations among neighbours
otherwise scarcely known to one another, and yet
as the final flourishes conclude, and the labours
are ended, I may be the only one to notice something
when the last afternoon sun has poured
over the trees to wash the new building—
in the distance it resembles a castle on a hill,
shining and white. People move in and out,
as they are living there now, so that, later still,
when I look out at night there is no monstrosity
but what seems the lights of a great ship, a clipper
or a cruise liner, afloat on a dark sea.
Jamie Grant
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.
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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
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23 mins
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2 mins