'

'... they would hold their little hands through the wire ...'

"... they would hold their
little hands through the wire
and tell them who they were,
who their mothers were,
where they'd come from ..."

bin ends of a language
dusty resting in the hereness-
and-nowness
eyes cried back and sightless
from infinity, not transparent
to its edges
the country beyond the compound
working its sympathetic magic
as real as cold
without the pretence of life
given stone warmed by the sun

and the children shiver
through bodies untouched
by stiff white smocks
through dreams uninvaded
by the faded bodies
of the newcomers

make no comment on
the bibles, the hot tea,
the irremissible "punishments" which
would separate them from their
impressions in this land

make no movement beneath
the hurled down words of their captors
whose net is tight
too tight for reminiscing the future
(when the children were born
their parents were already
caught in it, inheritance
is not possible through them)

but the land waits
full of desire, like the sun
wants the sky, for these children

whose little hands
reach through the wire
whose small hands know how to heal
the disbelief built strong like this prison

on the country
MTC Cronin

[Opening lines in italics those of Vi Stanton in Kevin Gilbert's Living Black.]