Deb Curreen Author

  When I was a girl, 5 or 6, we went to our first Anzac Parade, just we three -my brother and mother and me. Because, "your Grandad fought in the war," which made me think he went to this Anzac war But no, not that one, another one. Another war? How many wars? My little mind boggled. And he was gassed, by mustard gas, which sounds like something I will never like the taste of. Now he's in hospital, in an oxygen tent, where he can no longer, hold my hand - because of war. It was hot, that day of my first parade. The soldiers wore uniforms the colour of dying grass, heavy medals clinked beneath the strong sunshine, as my sweaty hand sought out my mother's trembling grasp. I awkwardly shuffled from toe to toe, wandering if Santa Claus was coming to this parade, hopefully to throw some lollies to me. Mother saluted the steadfast soldiers as they strode silently past, I raised my hand in a bent salute, shielding my eyes from the sun. Was this what Gallipoli was like? I did

I’ve been watching the news again on the terror-vision, the window of doom into my sitting room and I wonder if anywhere is sacred anymore.                                                 Do the sea lions know they are no longer protected?  that some fullah too fat to fish anymore is removing the protection from their lives, while children begin to starve on the playgrounds.                                                                                                  Who really cares? Shrugs a heartless coalition, as a couple of politicians turn their coats over on potholes, they’re never going to fix… and it’s time for their five-course lunch, that the taxpayers paid for. “Watch out kiwi and kakapo,” cries a bellbird, swinging from a brittle kowhai branch, as pine trees tagged for China fall around her home. “You’ll be next!” Raise your one-use cups of latte to a crumbling sky that doesn't know whether it's raining or crying for the death of   the seas it'sposed

These first days of the 21 st century are like a mighty, rushing wind, with fiery tongues, as thunder rolls across the oceans floors, and moons turn blood red in the sky, or hang blue in the heavens on sacred nights while the sun is darkened at midday, by the shadow of a dog that never bit no one, as we ask for a sign, and the universe is singing.   An iceberg shatters in the North and drifts slowly into a trembling eternity, while we all dance like there is no tomorrow, rolling in beds of wealth that we never deserved, poached from the lives of families we never knew. I wonder about hope, as I sit outside a church waiting for a sign from clouds that obscure the heavens.   They found a polar bear in a rubbish dump in Siberia- what a hell! She'd lost her babies, somewhere in the smog of humanity. How did it come to this? I cried on David Attenborough’s shoulder, while he turned another page, folding it over on mankind’s crumbling destiny.