Museworthy: The Law of Ears and Also Things Close

Museworthy: The Law of Ears and Also Things Close

"If sound waves carry on to infinity,
where are their screams now?"
Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces

sound as close as my ears
and upon the side of the green hill
a lace of seagulls
unravelling its own pattern
and then no birds
just shadows of birds

small thoughts
black thoughts
that woman and her child
will die in the next war
a new law
means we take it seriously

and they still die...
and of luck?
the black sky laughs
and asks what possible exceptions
could you have to the moon?
right and wrong

behind the veil of the sky
listening to the argument
of six moral philosophers
standing on a pin
and my sound-filled body
is the point of access

falling it rings out
heavy as a rock
in this avalanche
as before the cliffs
black foam rises uncertainly
towards the dust in my head

BY MTC CRONIN

MTC Cronin has had six books of poetry published, the most recent being Talking to Neruda's Questions and Bestseller (both Vagabond Press, 2001). Another collection, My Lover's Back, is forthcoming in 2002 (UQP). She is currently working on a PhD, Poetry and Law: Discourses of the Social Heart, and has recently received an Established Writers New Work Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts. Her books are available by contacting her at <margie_cronin@hotmail.com> or phone (02) 9550 2918.

From Green Left Weekly, November 28, 2001.

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From GLW issue 473