They linked arms as they advanced towards the police lines.
Pania stood to one side. She held aloft a sign – it was not on a pole, she held either edge of
it over her head.
This is not the moment for the consideration of art history, Anthony scolded himself, but
amidst the fear that churned his mind was a cool corner that saw and analysed the sight.
The Shadow of Death was painted in the 1870s by William Holman Hunt. Pania’s stance
mirrored Christ’s in the painting exactly – he, stretching his arms up from carpentry work
and his mother aghast at the shadow cast on the wall, the shadow falling on a beam from
which tools hung – a shadow man crucified. The angle of her hips, the jacket tied around
her waist. The correspondence was uncanny. And chilling.
She it was who had said on RNZ after the Environment Court delivered its final decision
that she was willing to die. ‘We will remain here until the bulldozers come. I’ve already
planned to sacrifice my life for this campaign’.
It was as if she were the only real person there, the rest of them like characters in a short
short story – a flurry of drama and the book is closed – but for her this was real.
She was like a karearea – fierce and burning, with rage gleaming in its eye, beautiful and
wild in the sky or swooping remorselessly upon prey, but ultimately fragile – light, hollow
bones and delicate soft brown pinions. Could her rage prevail, could such purity resist the
seemingly relentless spread of injustice?
Anthony drew his elbows in, drawing closer to him Kayda Matsushita on his left and
Gerard on his right.
They staggered forward
‘Pigs in the dark,’ Anthony thought. The last dim light of the day just defined the silhouette of Otuataua Maunga to the west but the harsh white flood lights of the police position illuminated the advancing crowd starkly.
The lights, the line of them linking arms – we must look, thought Anthony, to the police like actors taking a last bow before the final curtain falls.
Pania stood to one side. She held aloft a sign – it was not on a pole, she held either edge of
it over her head.
This is not the moment for the consideration of art history, Anthony scolded himself, but
amidst the fear that churned his mind was a cool corner that saw and analysed the sight.
The Shadow of Death was painted in the 1870s by William Holman Hunt. Pania’s stance
mirrored Christ’s in the painting exactly – he, stretching his arms up from carpentry work
and his mother aghast at the shadow cast on the wall, the shadow falling on a beam from
which tools hung – a shadow man crucified. The angle of her hips, the jacket tied around
her waist. The correspondence was uncanny. And chilling.
She it was who had said on RNZ after the Environment Court delivered its final decision
that she was willing to die. ‘We will remain here until the bulldozers come. I’ve already
planned to sacrifice my life for this campaign’.
It was as if she were the only real person there, the rest of them like characters in a short
short story – a flurry of drama and the book is closed – but for her this was real.
She was like a karearea – fierce and burning, with rage gleaming in its eye, beautiful and
wild in the sky or swooping remorselessly upon prey, but ultimately fragile – light, hollow
bones and delicate soft brown pinions. Could her rage prevail, could such purity resist the
seemingly relentless spread of injustice?
Anthony drew his elbows in, drawing closer to him Kayda Matsushita on his left and
Gerard on his right.
They staggered forward
‘Pigs in the dark,’ Anthony thought. The last dim light of the day just defined the silhouette of Otuataua Maunga to the west but the harsh white flood lights of the police position illuminated the advancing crowd starkly.
The lights, the line of them linking arms – we must look, thought Anthony, to the police like actors taking a last bow before the final curtain falls.
Dhiraja
No comments:
Post a Comment