{"id":2505,"date":"2020-03-24T12:33:48","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T01:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.amt.org.au\/?p=2505"},"modified":"2020-03-24T16:52:19","modified_gmt":"2020-03-24T05:52:19","slug":"ordeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.amt.org.au\/index.php\/2020\/03\/24\/ordeal\/","title":{"rendered":"Ordeal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Rebecca Barnett<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I promise to make you more alive than you\u2019ve ever been.
For the first time you\u2019ll see your pores opening
like the gills of a fish and you\u2019ll hear
the noise of blood in galleries
and feel light gliding on your corneas
like the dragging of a dress across the floor.
For the first time, you\u2019ll note gravity\u2019s prick
like a thorn in your heal,
and your shoulder blades will hurt from the imperative of wings.
I promise to make you so alive that
the fall of dust on furniture will deafen you,
and you\u2019ll feel your eyebrows like two wounds forming
and your memories will seem to begin
with the creation of the world.<\/em><\/p>

Nina Cassian, The Ordeal<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This is my favourite poem. And roughly 35 years since\nthe first time I read it, I find myself re-reading it through an entirely new\nlens. The poem now feels portentous in a way that I have never noticed or\nexperienced previously. Another layer of the onion peels off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My life could have been very different. More than that, it could easily not have happened at all. My Nanna\u2019s first husband was a victim of the Spanish flu pandemic in 1919. It took his life when he was in his early twenties. After his funeral service, Nanna wandered through the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney in a deep fog of grief, accompanied by a friend of her late husband, a young Sydney musician called George Vern Barnett<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My grandfather Vern died of a heart attack long before I was born. But, as a kid, my Nanna often used to tell me her story of walking the Royal Botanic Garden right after the funeral of her first husband with the man who was to become her second husband. As she became more forgetful and other less potent memories faded, she told the story more often. Sixty years on (and yes, you should stop and listen to this song from Elton John\u2019s first album now. If the opening string arrangement does not give you chills, I will eat my hat \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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