"Deyrolle", oil on panel, 16x24 inches, copyright Max Ferguson 2019, used with permission

The blue tinged finch she once held in her palm. Quietly lifeless. And Ann-Marie no more than a babe herself. Seeing death in the raw. Stroking the fine feathers that once soared above the belvedere. With tiny fingers, gently opening, parting, the beak of a mother who’d carried the grubs and titbits to fledglings waiting in the uppermost branches of an ancient oak. The bird now quite still, its duty done. Cupped and nestled in the hands of a young girl who’ll one day head to Paris and to a life beyond her wildest dreams, among the wildest of animals, stilled and glassy eyed. A menagerie for her to map and sketch and marvel at. Predators and prey scattered hither and thither in rooms and corridors unfamiliar. Continents colliding in passageways and cellars. Animals and birds, reptiles and insects out of place, yet happy and contented in each other's company. Even a winged unicorn to conjure God’s imagination. Yet on that blue-finch day Ann-Marie’s innocent eyes beheld in wonder her first encounter with mystery. With such compassion she’d taken the little bird into the forest and laid it to rest beneath the fallen leaves of autumn. Reverently. A pine cone for a headstone. And she said a prayer to the sky. From the Bible. The Talmud. From the Koran where animals and birds pray by their very being. 
Then in years to come, now a woman of note, of substance, stroking the fur of the tiger still and proud, she chronicles the size and weight, the look in the eye, the keenness of sound. What ways this creature must have gone? What sights he must have seen? Like once, lifetimes ago, before he had a name, when he saw a princess standing by the river. The princess in a long flowing dress looking up and down for a place to cross. But it was deep and the current raging. The tiger told her to climb upon his back. She knew to trust him. The tiger swam like a crocodile. When the princess got to the other bank, to her land, she lay down and gave birth to a baby. When she arrived at her palace she named the river Tigris in honour of her saviour.
There’s magic if you look for it. In words. In stories. In unicorns and small blue birds. Even in silence. Now the tiger’s gaze is fixed and steadied, focused on the Rue du Bac and the elegant mammals looking in from the street beyond. Storing away her notes, the bird in its hollow grave, Ann-Marie's work is over. She touches with her fingertip the claw of the Lord of the Forest. A connection. Igniting, reviving, the power and majesty, the might and the fury. Turning off the lights she leaves the Deyrolle to rejoice in the full moonlight that floods the passageway. Then she walks, one step at a time, mindful and respectful of what is left behind and of what is yet to come.

"Looking for America", oil on panel, 50x75cm, copyright Max Ferguson 2019, used with permission
(shown here in-progress)

​This is what Dad’d say to me and Jed, my brother. When he took us to a gallery. “Okay, you know the game … each guesses which painting the others like best … no talking, no conferring.” (He’d told us what conferring meant, so we didn’t). Then we’d walk through the gallery. Poker players. Hovering over a painting we had no intention of choosing. Doubling back. Ignoring a favourite, or lingering as a double-bluff. But I was easy to pick. If there was a cat in a picture. “It’s the cat one, isn’t it Jules?” That’s what Jed’d always say. And Dad would smile, remembering how I pestered him for our Siamese (Yul Bryner). At first he’d said, after he split from Mum and moved to the small apartment by the marina, that he couldn’t keep a cat. It’d be too much trouble. I’d keep saying how nice it’d be for me to have something to come home to after school on the nights when I stayed with him. Something to cuddle up to. Something to love. (I used to go on my own then. That was around the time Jed refused to see Dad on account of the incident with Mum at the basketball game). Anyway, this one morning we were walking in the park and I said (a kind of blackmail really) “You know, Dad, deep in your heart you want a cat.” And he looked at me and said yes and so we got one. A small warm kitten that I’ve loved with a vengeance ever since.
So if Dad was with me now, or Jed, they’d know in a heart-beat that this would be my pick. A cat on a boat with two mean-looking fur-trappers. Wondering if it ought to bite through the leash, jump and take its chances in the icy waters in case the men took a fancy to his own sleek coat. Razor sharp knives in their belts. Greed in their hearts. Even if the cat found he couldn’t swim, having never once tried, at least he’d be the master of his own demise. Not like that picture I chose on our holiday in London. (When we went with one of Dad’s new women). That picture stuck in my head. Two creepy girls holding up the kitten to the lamplight. To show the frock and bonnet they’d dressed her in, with strange butter-wouldn’t-melt-in–our-mouths-smiles-but-look-out-for-what-we’ll-do-when-we’re-out-of-sight. Did they squeeze her? Did they tease her?
What do paintings do to those they trap once you turn away?
Nowadays I come to galleries alone. At my own pace. No need to rush through the rooms. Choosing. Selecting. Conniving (but not conferring). It’s been five years since Dad moved up to Portland Oregon with his new wife. They have dogs. (So does Mum. She switched sides and lives in Hawaii with Jocelyn and a greyhound called Lightning). Jed’s done well. He lectures in American history in Champaign, Illinois. If he was here now, he’d pull me into the next room, leaving the cat to contemplate his options, and tell me all about what George Washington did at Trenton on Christmas Day in 1776.
Yul Bryner lives with me these days. Tonight, before we drift off to sleep together, I’ll lift up his silk purse ear and tell him that, yes, there are wars and there is greed and malice and men who’ll strip you bare, but there’s love and kindness and beautiful paintings on walls. Some with cats.
 

Been reading Roberto Bolano, Delia Falconer, Donald Hall, Leonard Cohen and Dorothy Porter to get the creative juices flowing to work up a new slant on form and structure.
Short fiction+disjointed narrative+poetry=a fun way to proceed.

A thoughtful review by philosopher and critic, Owen Richardson, in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, who really understood what I was aiming to achieve in 'Tell It To Te Dog"::

www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/tell-it-to-the-dog-review-robert-powers-memoir-with-a-difference-20170918-gyjl6p.html
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To be asked to select a defining year is challenging. especially one that ties in with my most recent book Tell it To The Dog. I chose 1985 as this was when I first became involved in the HIV epidemic. Little was I to know that this would lead to 32 years (and counting) in international public health. That journey would take me to all corners of the globe and provide many insights and incidences to be recounted in Tell it To The Dog.
You can listen to the podcast on the Sunday Extra webpage at:

www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/sundayextra/2017-07-16/8697068




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