Struan 1965 - Adm.monash.edu.au

WINNER*-STRUAN LITERARY AWARDGE,ORGENE MciLROYTHE STONE AXEIt lies on my desk in full view, where he may see it easily should he ever comesearching for it. To the casual observer it is simply a paper-weight. Indeed it servesthe purpose well enough; only I am d isquieted by the incongruity of this splendidcreation of hand and mind fulfilling so menial a role in such mundanesurroundings.He must have loved it; the creator who fashioned is so patiently' in those lostyears now shadowy in dreams. He [udqed its weight so carefully, just sufficientto make the fingers flex to support it, and draw the palm firmly against thesmooth, curving side, inviting the fingers to grip its contours so that they areautomatically guarded from slipping down the gleaming face to that bla ck, razorsharpedge.Here stands the products of the advanced mind, some Australoid Michelangelo;fashioned with consummate skill and endless patience, the prototype of a weaponother men would someday produce in metal .Often I have held it, admiring afreash the perfection of balance, the flawlesspolish; and grieve that it will never warm to my touch. It is as if the stone containsan endless source of cold, which strikes to my conscience, and grows, a burdenof guilt. Yes, I am guilty, for I coveted this beautiful th ing he had made, I stoleit and offered in return the symbol of a civilization he neither knew nor understood.Now the wrong is committed, and I solve my conscience and absolve my guilt, butI do not know how to make reparation.I remember the morning on which my association with the axe began, withdream-like clarity, It was early summer; I had left the car and followed athread-like path (probably a bandicoot run) through the grass and gorse, mypassing momentarily striking a sharper note in the drowsy murmur of themyriad wild bees. The sun was in earnest that morning, he leaned hotly on mybare arms and neck, and set the heat haze dancing where the gold of the gorsemingled with the first flattened top of the marram grass .Here the track dipped steeply towards the bay. The long, green surf camecurling lazily in, shattering into festoons of foam [ust where the ebb and flowset the colours spreading in the wet sand.This curve of coatstline, how I loved it. It stretched way on either side like agraceful gesture from the hand of God in the dawn of Creation. Every sound ofwind and surf and birds' calls, the scent of bloom and wet sand, each dip of thepath and the outcrop of rich red rock burning its colours into the silver seaof marram grass, I know it all so well . J always thought, as a ch ild, that could Ichoose the place of my death, this would be it; this the impression and picture Iwould want to carry with me into all eternity.As I stood there delighting anew in the surrounding loveliness, somethingflickered dark and swift across the silver plains or marram grass , and I glancedupwards. High in the blue a pair of white sea-hawks was teaching a pair ofoffspring to hunt. They led their children upward in effortless spirals, then droppedaway in great swoops, sw ift aerial yachts, in line ahead . I moved on and down,intent on the hawks' aerial manoeuvres, and missed my footing. I went slidingdown, submerged beneath silver waves of marram grass. I struggled to a sittingposition. There was my opened purse, its largesse of coins scattered on a flat, redrock, and beside them were the car keys. I became conscious that one hand felt32