The Struggle To Survive

*

Lay Your Sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm:
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit's carnal ecstasy,

Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost.
All the dreaded cards foretell.
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought.
Not a kiss nor look be lost.

Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of welcome show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find our mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness find you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.

W. H. Auden
Lullaby.

Well of course things were faulty, he had disengaged. But the ancient voices were still clear. He could hear the wolves howling outside his family's humble, wooden plank cottage. Its earthen floor. The fire that provided them with warmth, dinner, emotional comfort. Many bad things had already happened, but there was no other choice except acceptance. Their fate had been chosen. He was walking in the darkness through the forest. Home was near and comfort everywhere, but he wasn't yet home free. Grey shadows lurked just beyond his field of vision. Everything was gone. He had been so strong and handsome; he knew it casually, the way people reacted around him. He carried authority. One day he would be leader of the village, despite the complications.

But this night was a different night and before there was any future of grandchildren and rotting teeth he had to make it home. This was where he became frightened, as if pre-destined. The horrors were out here. He had misjudged the timing; only the last glimmers of the day were in the sky now and with a moonless night sky it was almost impossible to see the path. Sometimes he thought he could see the glow of the village fires through the trees, smell the burning wood. But with the coming of winter people had moved indoors; and perhaps they hadn't even bothered to light a fire outside tonight. Wood had been scarce; their extreme poverty crippling the older folk so they barely had the energy to find wood, deep in the darkness.

The forest, as far as he knew, had no end, although their stories spoke of places where animals roamed free on great open grass lands. It was something he had always longed to see, but with the coming of children his own youthful dreams disintegrated; all shadows and rocks and threads of causal moments. He tripped over a log on the path, but was comforted by the accident because he could remember this very same log from the morning going out. His backpack was heavy from the rabbits he had artfully caught. Their speed and their size had made the catch very difficulty; and they had been far away; further than his competitors had been prepared to go at this time of year. But he was overwhelmed with love; a determination to protect the new-born, to provide the best to his children's mother; so he had set off early and told no one of his destination.

They would be beginning to worry now. The pot empty. The children grizzling as they went to bed with nothing but porridge, again. He could smell the blood of the rabbits on his back, and moved even quicker. He thought he recognised the shapes of the trees, he thought he recognised bends in the path. What was unmistakable was the movement of the hungry dogs in the forest as they followed him. Sometimes he caught a gleam of their eyes, hungry, almost evil, certainly the biggest threat he now faced. Briefly he had thought of leaving his cargo behind, the catch of which only a few hours before he had been so excited and triumphant about. But he knew he was close; and at last the path beneath his feet began to broaden as they approached the village.

It was as he had predicted. The children had been crying; they didn't like it when he wasn't there to protect them. His beloved barely looked up, stirring a pot full of twigs and grass and the only vegetables she could find. He dumped the load right next to her; and then she she smiled and climbed up and shouted thanks to the spirits. Any thought of the children going to bed hungry was banished now. He watched as she skillfully skinned his catch and threw the unfortunate animal in the pot; virtually whole. He was glad to get his shoes off; to shut the door on the bitter cold of the forest; to say hello to the ragged elements of his little band, her aging parents, his already being dead, his clawing children, an ancient uncle from his side. Everything about their survival fell to him.

These historical memories were triggered by the sight of fire, by the beginning of a cold winter. All would be shadows. Something was afoot. The other houses in their tiny collective were also feeling the impacts of the famine. Their crops had almost all failed this summer; rain never came, the season was short. These threads were a long way from supermarkets and welfare cheques without connection to effort. He was clear at the time that nothing would make any difference, genes would be passed down through generations, cold would always trigger the desire for fire and comfort. The bright packaging, the muzak, the queues, the ugliness of the grasping crowds; all of this lay in a future he could never imagine; here in the smoke stained walls of his family hut; here in the darkness of a forest so dense no one had ever escaped, here where his family struggled daily to survive, but could imagine no other life.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/27/2553179.htm?section=australia

Federal politicians are to receive $4,700 a year more in electorate allowances, taking the total yearly subsidy to $32,000.

It amounts to about $90 a week, three times what aged pensioners are calling for in terms of an increase to their pension.

The allowance is designed to cover electorate expenses, but any money not used at the end of each year is treated as personal income.

The Remuneration Tribunal says the allowance has not been changed since 2000, and inflation means politicians are still worse off in real terms.

Superannuation Minister Nick Sherry has defended the increase, saying the money is used for valid electoral purposes.

"Well I don't keep the money because it's the electoral allowance, it doesn't go into my pay, it doesn't go into my pocket, it's for expenditure in the electorate," Senator Sherry said.

"Typically I would spend it - and I spend all of mine - on things like like donations to sporting and community organisations, raffles, donations to individuals - they're the sorts of expenditures.

"That is what it's for, it's not pay as such."

http://www.smh.com.au/national/bikies-unite-to-fight-new-gang-laws-20090426-ajd9.html

A LEGAL challenge to new anti-gang legislation will be one of the first moves a new bikie club council will make.

In an unprecedented move, the largest outlaw motorcycle club in Australia, the Rebels, opened the gates of its Leppington national clubhouse to the media yesterday to show a publicly united front to the organised crime bill recently enacted by the State Government.

Members of all the main clubs in NSW except the Nomads arrived at the Bringelly Road clubhouse to shake hands and - publicly at least - present a peaceful and united front.

After watching a procession of bikies enter the fortified club house, the media were ushered inside by large, tattooed men wearing Rebels regalia.

Inside the large cement hall, with a boxing ring in one corner and a long bar against one wall, about 20 men in full club colours stood drinking and talking quietly.

Despite originally saying "interviews" would be available, the Rebels national president, Alessio "Alex" Vella, told the media there would be no questions and no comment except by barrister and long-time Rebels lawyer, Geoffrey Nicholson, QC, and a senior God Squad member who called himself "Fish".

"We're here to unite as one voice, to reassure the public that there's no ongoing disputes between the clubs," Fish said. "The council will be meeting for consultation and discussions on a regular basis. The clubs are united."

Some clubs were on "runs" so could not attend, he said.

Mr Nicholson then addressed the media, attacking the Criminal Organisations Control Act passed this month.

"It's important to remember that all that activity has been carried out under existing laws, not under these new laws."

The new laws were directed not only at the outlaw clubs, but at "any organisations or club in the community" and would limit freedom of speech and the freedom to associate, he said.

Basic civil liberties had been forsaken by the Government in order to target the clubs, Mr Nicholson said.

"Today a bike group, tomorrow perhaps a trade union, a dissident group. There is no restriction in that legislation," he said.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25390427-5013404,00.html

THERE were some signals of hope from the world's finance ministers in Washington but Wayne Swan appeared keen to talk it down yesterday, leaving open the possibility that the world might yet sink into another Great Depression.
A communique from finance ministers of the largest seven countries in the world said there were signs of stabilisation in the G7 economies and that "activity should begin to recover later this year amid a continued weak outlook".

But the Treasurer said the consensus in Washington was that the forecast remained "bleak".

As the Rudd Government plays the tricky task of managing expectations for its budget next month, maintain political support for its spending plans and blame any economic ills on events overseas, talk of the global contraction ending before a recession has even officially begun in Australia presents a challenge for Labor.

Asked in an interview on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund's spring meetings if there were encouraging signs in the global economy, Mr Swan said: "I don't think anyone is saying that. There are glimmers of hope and some signs of stabilisation, or at least of the contraction decelerating, that's all.

"If anything, the view here is that (the contraction) is likely to be deep and reasonably long and why we need to redouble our efforts taken in London (at the G20 meeting earlier this month).

"Yes, there is a sense at this stage the financial system is better than it looked for a while but nobody is claiming anything more than that." US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner acknowledged on the weekend that it would be "wrong to conclude that we are close to emerging from the darkness that descended on the global economy early last fall".

Penrith Train Station at sunset; I was out there covering an inquest and there's been a crackdown on cabcharges; hence the train station.