i am with the priest and the priest has parkinson’s and we are on a boat
on the galilean sea and the sea is broiling, the sky as dark as murderous thoughts;

and on the coffee table ben roberts-smith just got passed down*—all khaki-clad-two-metres-tall-of-him, all medals-across-the-breast-of-him, all square-jaw-tan-beret
of him—he tumbled down a cliff called national identity, rolled over bloody lies
called buried, split his father of the year smile called photo opportunity;

brs just got passed down from national hero to war criminal, and outside a cocky squawks, its sulphur crest up like a dog’s hackles, like a cynics eyebrows;

and the priest and i dive into von rad’s old testament theology*, and try to follow
his strange tracks across shifting sands: how slaves fleeing the sea of reeds became the parting of the red sea, how language leaves traces of truth, and how myth
will bloom whether for good or ill;

and the diggers’ myth grew like a monster to slake a country’s thirst and afghan widows heave unborn days onto graves that cannot be erased;

and our ben—taller than ayers rock, wider than the harbour bridge, stronger
than a V8 ute—has just been passed down,

there’s a hole in the boat and who will pay the scumbag journalists?

and the priest opposite me has a hole in his heart called endless, called never finished, called passivism, and despite the shredded net of his cognition*, the sands
of his protesting life have settled in the cells of his being, and still shift in a wind called justice, called peace peace,

and in his painting over his left shoulder, jesus wakes and sees the disciples shooting at ghosts, and chides them saying, for christ’s sake sit down
and calms the waters saying
the world is full of real terrors, keep rowing