Therapy
Group Therapy
We gather each day in this circle, I know everyone’s slippers by heart.
The liturgy of tartan, fluffy and sheepskin, begins with confession,
a suitcase of letters and cards she never opened, the child she
abandoned, his lost dream of seeing elephants in Africa. They offer
losses like chocolates. I suck on the hard centre of her accident,
swallow it whole, wanting to cry a tsunami of tears to wash it away.
I don’t, but he does, weeps like the child they never wanted,
utters his unspeakable nickname, how his stomach was broken by boots,
word, flesh and blood become one. A mother-shaped hole in the room
gapes in the elusive light of winter sun, but no mother moves to fill it.
We breathe, simple as trees, but not as useful, as our father, the nurse
passes the cup with our pills, pierces the blue brocade of our arms.
He stinks of the smoking we’re not allowed to do, his inspiration.
She starts humming the tune called Slane. He says, Shut up will you,
this isn’t church, you know. Except it is, I want to say but I’m the one
who never speaks. Be Thou My Vision sounds in the chapel of my head,
one of my hands comforts the other as words fly away, try to escape,
rise up and beat their wings like doves against the locked windows.
Victoria Field
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