Women, open your almond eyes!

Bones broken, toes crushed under,
gangrene risked in merciless bandages,
for centuries, even till our time,
Chinese women of good family
had their feet bound
to make them totter
sexily, submissively
for men.

Today Chinese women,
petite, daintily proportioned,
have their legs lengthened
in three bouts of surgery,
bones sawn, stretched, pinned, twisted,
to gain six centimetres' height,
pleasing the short, rotund Chinese male's
imported concept of beauty.

Confucius say:
the more things change, the more they stay the same.
top

Priest and Levite -compassion in retrospect

Given ten minutes alone
to take in the grandeur
of this cathedral,
my thoughts go back
to a haunting missed moment.
I take a place in the Governor's seat.
She will not mind.

I remember the morning
outside this house of God.
My counselor and I
indulged in a friendly breakfast,
walked back to our cars
and ignored the Maori woman
sitting, weeping, on the low wall.
She has journeyed through sorrow.

I know we both saw her.
She did not look up.
Our shadow passed over her.
We were gone.
She, left alone.
I'll never know
if a good Australian ever came
to bind up her woundedness.
top

Douglas Scrub House, the original Paxlease

The old door
Battered panels threaten to slip loose, be tree again,
corners tatty as chewed bark.
Dented tin handle, finely moulded,
edge embossed like jewels.
The door opens so jerkily
its knocker knocks its own welcome
in case it should feel unloved,
the house redundant.
top