#139 Kevin Brophy 'Desert pantings'

#139 ‘Desert paintings’

Wrapping up and rolling up

their paintings on the theme

of the Spirit of the Kimberley

for a competition to be judged

six hundred kilometres away

I worry that the judges might not

see all that’s in these pictures—

the stained concrete floors

on which each canvas was laid out and planned;

the chipped and cramped kitchen table

where two women put the last

thickening touches to each symbol

and the holy desert bird;

the sounds those angels made

in the sky all day,

screeching just like cockatoos

to urge the women on

to finish their works, as every season does;

the long thin stick one woman took

from her white curls

to make the dots as fine and layered

as the stones outside

beneath the town’s sandy crust, its puddles, its grass;

the many colours embedded

in the dark eyes

of these women bent over these paintings;

the hope they have

that there might really be a bird,

there might really be some peace here,

that strength can be found

at the end of an arm,

a shaking hand, a colour chosen for its grace.