Curio

State Library of New South Wales

Unidentified dead baby

1870-1875
Glass photonegative

This photograph of a dead child, with a wreath of dianthus and surrounded by eucalypt leaves and roses, is a reminder of the high mortality of children in the nineteenth century. In the 1870s, about a quarter of all children in Australia died before five years of age, usually from diarrhoea and intestinal diseases.

She is gone to the angels by Sheryl Persson

To caress your curls I have wreathed dianthus leaves

around your cherub’s head.  Flowers that first sprang

where Mary’s tears fell long ago, for her only son.

Carnations have incarnations; luck or funeral flowers.

Now tears fall for my angel with lily skin, rosebud lips

tears too are a symbol of a mother’s undying love.

We have laid you out in your recent christening gown

arranged so none can see the swelling in your tiny neck.

I imagine you are sleeping in a garden, so serene

your lids about to flutter open like butterfly wings.

To caress your curls I have wreathed dianthus leaves

around your cherub’s head. Dianthus; it sounds

so melodic on the tongue just like the hated word

diphtheria, diphtheria; the visitor, who came silently

came uninvited to our house and to many others.

Last night late, when the southerly wind roared in

cooled the air but not our child, she burned with fever

from that other angel’s touch, not heaven sent.

The strangling angel, invisible thief, slowly tightened

its leathery strap in baby’s throat, took her last breath.

 

The Child by Paula McKay

By Paula McKay

The Mother

You who lines the box with white silk

and lays them to their final rest

who wraps them in the gentle sheet

ensures their eyes are closed in sleep

please  hold my child's hand

as he lies down  and light a candle

for he fears the dark

The Father

I always said  Jump down son 

I'll catch you and trusting me he leapt

I'd shepherd him, laughing in my arms.   

What kind of father am I now

who cries aloud  Son I'm here

stretch your hand out from the dark

knowing that he cannot reach?