This is a procession

This is a procession through the streets of Sydney one Sunday. Tens of thousands of people turned out. The procession from the oldest Catholic church in Sydney, carrying relics left by the first priest after he was forced to leave the colony, we weren't the master of the detail, or of our destiny. It was a very colourful event; yellow balloons, St Mary, everyone expected a miracle. They thronged around St Mary's. I was carried away too, now, in the longing for a deeper space. That wasn't so much what propelled him, as fostered him. If there was anything there. The audience was in raptures and he was not one to argue. There had been a poverty of experience and it needed to be overcome. All the dignity and coverage we give to far narrower interest groups; who would be in raptures to get a turnout like this. Even the Work Choices march, the other great march of the period. They scattered in the streets now, quickly, as if there wasn't any heart but in the pubs, which did a roaring trade. The Catholics of course took their families, all ages, all nationalities, all determined in their beliefs, the nuns in grey, chanting, waving incense, the intense look in some boys faces; for which the future path might be very different to his. If only it hadn't gone so quickly. We shared there, in long stakeouts and rushed jobs and seas of suits, confidences we would never share with anyone else; not in the same way. But not all his human interaction could be photographers. He hid low, sometimes, behind the terminal, dawdled with a feature. There were more dead in Iraq. There always was. How much more could the moral stain spread from this. We met each other through text and sat for a moment watching the view, the crowds flowing into the cathedral, the thousands gathering outside. It was a finished moment, legs swinging briefly in the Sydney winter sun, the sandstone courtyard, enough people talked to, enough people canvassed. He was getting better, he thought. Two steps forward and one step back. Their raptures, his sanity. They went hunting for a taxi in the crowded silence. There wasn't any way out.