The Wisdom of Infants
A suite of 6 pictures (enamel on timber construction)
by Tony Twigg
with poetry by Mike Ladd

SUN

The dream of Hydrogen.
Here is gold
and here is grain
and the nub of thought.
Without this fusion
there are no stories.

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MOON

Dark in the light
because always the myth
of dying and being reborn.
A million moons
shattered on water,
the steps of a dancing child.

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BEGINNING

Somehow time began.
Something set it going.
Then sun made soil,
a thread made braid
and you (DNA.)
Something sprouted.

---

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DAYS

From shards of intentions
the days form circles.
Motivations and mistakes
tangents and arcs.
Why so serious?
Play, play! It’s a game.

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MONUMENT

A presence here.
Made to re (mind)
re (collect.)
Echoes of Sanskrit.
A memory of being
before being.

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MYTH

Creation stories
of sea, land and sky,
stone, wood and field.
Infant myths.
Tales we knew
before we could tell them.

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Through his “paintings”, Tony Twigg has recorded performance works with puppeteers and dancers as his subject matter. These stories have been told and told again and then told to Mike Ladd over a couple of beers in a Sydney bar, as pictures. They met each other at the opening of a Twigg show at Taksu Gallery, in Kuala Lumpur, where Ladd was a resident at Rimbun Dahan where Twigg had already been. They walked, not together but through the same landscape as men, inclined to speak to each other.

Mike Ladd is a poet, essayist and nature lover. He has published ten collections of poetry and prose, including the natural history Karrawirra Parri, Walking the Torrens from Source to Sea, from Wakefield Press. His most recent book is Dream Tetras (2022) an experimental collaboration with visual artist Cathy Brooks.  Mike was the editor of ABC Radio National’s Poetica program, which ran for eighteen years and brought Australian and international poetry to a wide audience. 

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