Issue 6 2010 - TLS - Victoria University

this story
by Kristin Henry
Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this one. It’s time to honour the art of repetition. God was the
last original. Some people have always known this; people from places where they’ve danced
the same dance right down to the slightest lift of their finger tips for thousands of years, and
not because they lack imagination; people from places where they tell a story over and over
again and it’s more than what happens next that makes you listen. They know a story isn’t
born whole, it takes the storyteller time to chisel and mould, practice to remember exactly not
just plots but all the tiny inflections. And children know this too. Try to change their stories
and they’ll send you back to the beginning. They want it right, not different. And for them
and us the spaces between are also part of the story. It takes everybody time to memorise the
stretch of silence, the intake of breath. Anticipation’s best when you know what you’re waiting
for. This story is not new. Not a surprising story. This story is for reminding. This story is
for making you feel like you feel when you know the words of a song or a prayer in church.
This is a story about where you came from so it’s a story about where you belong and it
doesn’t change, it’s not supposed to, it’s the story of how you got so strong and it’s the story
of the story. Every now and then I’ll want to tell you how it was and even though you know the
way it all turns out you hae to listen with your heart open, the very heart by which you
already know the words. But sometimes listen with your eyes closed, as if it was an opera in
Italian, and don’t worry about the language, just vibrate to the colours and get ready for those
high notes. They’re coming. This story delivers what it promises. Lie back and float on the
waves I make with the gestures of my hands. Yes, I’ll repeat myself. You can move your lips a
little, you can even join in when it gets to your favourite part. Here there is no edge for
cutting, and no garde for avanting, there is only the same old story, fresh as resurrection.
Kristin Henry is a Melbourne poet and teacher and has contributed generously to many editions of
Platform.
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