Dawn, 25 April 2020

Pinpoints of light in the suburbs at dawn, a kookaburra, and when the Last Post sounds spectrally on the radio, a chicken starts crowing, a flight of parrots drops from the gum. The family next door are huddled on their balcony too, looking over towards the sea in the cold wind. The children and I blow kisses. A little palmette on the table matches the colour of the rising sun. Yesterday the university announced devastating financial loss   from the Covid 19. Universities have been forced through continual cuts in Government funding to use International students as a main resource. Such wonderful International students I have taught there: sometimes Mandarin was the most common language in the postgraduate studio. They revered learning and their professors and studied with huge determination to grasp and succeed in a different culture and language.

Doubly sad, thinking of my father in World War II for six years, and then him coming home to work in building a wide-ranging university system under Robert Menzies in the 1950s. Education, the heartwarming 'universitas' of teachers and students researching together in courageous scholarship has illuminated my life. 'Search' in old definitions is not only to scrutinise knowledge, but to examine one’s own heart and thinking, and even to probe a wound.

Diana Wood Conroy,' Dawn', watercolour on Arches paper, 15 x 21 cm, 25 April 2020.