Separate Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

‘No man is an island'.
True - though some come close.

Amid racist hysteria
And panic about contagion
In 1903
A Chinese gardener
Named Kim Lee
Was marooned alone
On a tiny islet
Off Somes Island
In Wellington Harbour
New Zealand
Accused of having leprosy.

Left to live in an open cave
Given packing cases
From which to make furniture
His foodstuffs were delivered
By the lighthouse keeper
In a rowboat
Or by means of a jury-rigged
Overhead wire
If seas were rough.

Kim didn't last long
Before the howling wind
The isolation and the terror
And his TB did for him.

Today the sun was shining on
Mokopuna Island
And I thought of Liu Xia
Under house arrest in China
Now for eight years.

And her husband Liu Xiaobo
Who died in custody,
Hospitalised like Pablo Neruda,
Incarcerated for speaking out
For simply affirming
That any authority
Which creates or condones
Enmity has no legitimacy

And that freedom of speech
Is basic to being human,
Being the mother of decency:
That we are all the less
If we are not involved
In caring about its erosion.

Accused only of love and loyalty
In her isolation, Liu Xia says:
"There is nothing I fear now.
If I can't leave,
I'll just die at home.

Xiaobo has already left,
There is nothing in this world for me.
Dying is easier than living:
There is nothing simpler for me
Than to protest with death."

Does that make sense Kim?

Looking across from Days Bay
I was diminished by the islet
Of the island in the harbour
And the grief and anger
And guilt that separates us:
The remorseless grasping sea
Tearing away at compassion.

But addressing his wife
In statement to the court
In her enforced absence
Liu Xiaobo had this to say:

'I am full of regret
Become an insensate stone
In the wilderness
Whipped by fierce wind
And torrential rain
So cold none dares touch.

But my love for you
Though broken away
Is still part of the whole
And even if it is crushed
The dust will cling to you'.