Truth-and-Darkness                                                            Page 38

The structure of the poem and the flowing, repetitious words create the illusion

of the river, ceaselessly flowing. But it is an illusion of an illusion - the

mistaken world of the drowning people who will not save themselves: '"No one

but themselves could save them." The "invisible wand" (dispositions of love

and faith that depend on freedom and personal assent) is there but "they would

not take it,.. .they dared not take it". No one is excluded from the vision of the

Christ-figure,, nor does he save anyone; not the strong (soldiers), not the

supposedly wise (elders), not those who give birth to life (women), not those

who carry new life (children). This is not the river of life running free, or a

crystal lake of clear truths. This is "dark" truth, the truth of freedom and

personal choice swept away in a river of illusion.

"Eli, Eli" is a stark confrontation with the darkness that is said to have

descended over the earth at the death of Jesus. The figure on the cross is not

described in physical detail but in mental anguish. However, visual images of

crucifixion are instantly there in the cry of the title, “Eli, Eli". The cry bursts

from an extremity of physical and mental suffering both of which are real and

easily recognised as true in human life. The poem takes this pain beyond the

boundaries of anything the mind can fathom. It cannot be fathomed through

dogmatic theology or explained in any rational formula. Darkness is the natural

element of the cry of abandonment that has no answer.

Poetry and art attempt to respond to the darkness that has no boundary by

giving it a "word" or an image. Brett Whiteley's massive painting "My God,

my God .., why..." "depicts pain so great that (it) cannot be contained within

the boundary of the painting." ⁴⁰ The hands, distorted in agony, reach up and

out beyond the edge of the painting. The power of the painting is in these

hands: out-beyond-the-edge, outside the usual "frame" of thinking. The

extreme suffering in the poem is of the same intensity as that in the painting,

and it is not short-circuited. The poem ends on a note close to despair:

⁴⁰ Rosemary Crumlin, Images of Religion in Australian Art (Kensington, NSW Bay Books,1988) pp. 118-9