She is sitting in an open-air bath
That she got given and set up next to her tent,
Which is decorated by this string of bulbs,
Illuminating softly all the material that she has left.
But she glows like there’s a sun inside her soul,
Soothing anyone brave enough to see.
She’s a blend of a painting and a poem
Written in a language that I am out here trying to learn.
For above her, our universe is dark
And stretches past our stars to who the hell knows where,
But she supports all of its silent weight
by looking up, from her bath,
And gently smiling as she converses with the birds.
There’s a horse nearby who dances with her,
Like a young lover desperate to impress.
And every morning she walks along Cable Beach
Naked, in what she calls her Church.
And the sun is painting her aging body
On the Alter where she’s been trying to lay her pain,
But those prayers are still waiting to be answered,
In those lines time’s carving into her face.
She’s a refugee from her own people.
She’s a leper and I think’s she might be Jesus too,
For around her the other lepers are dancing
Despite us stripping all their dreams away.
To you they are selfish and deplorable,
But to me inside their dignity and grace
Inside that kindness that they simply won’t discard,
Is all we have left to show our gods,
that despite the cold darkness our cowardice is creating,
This woman and her outcast friends are tonight,
As beautiful as I can imagine
Any flower that bloomed in Eden.
Michael Gray Griffith
For the Broome Resistance Group and all of my Tribe
May 2022
Children of Epic