So often reproduced and yet

the message so elusive.

John Woodcock Graves the younger,
lawyer, writer, poet, ‘friend’,

is standing high beside her,

not quite profile, looking down,
frock coat reaching to his knees.

Truganini, Trugernanner,

also known as Lalla Rookh,
is sitting in a stiff-backed chair,

the lines of which her long-sleeved, white

Victorian dress obscure.
What looks to be a scarf with tassles

reaches to her knees;

it’s white as well, her captors’ colour.
She’s thought to be the last, she knows —

of interest to Science.

She knows too that related women
are living in Bass Strait with sealers.

Graves, it’s said, was genial,

learnèd and eccentric,
something of a sketcher and

a well-known greyhound breeder.

Although the photograph’s undated 
some say it’s 1876

and just three months away

from Truganini’s death 
and five from that of Mr Graves

at only forty-seven.

But all of this is mere description.
It doesn’t read the code between them:

Graves, full-height, arms folded,

pensive, sad and somewhat
proprietorial;

Truganini with her hands

clasped across her lap.
Her woman’s eyes are wary embers;

they blaze at her ‘protector’’s belly.

Are the two of them aware
their photograph must prove symbolic?

Truganini knows her bones

will be displayed and sent to London;
she cannot know her ashes

will take just on a century

to regain D’Entrecasteaux Channel.
Graves knows too that he is powerless

for all his knowledge of the law.

He can’t foresee, we must assume, 
his own death is so imminent.

Each knows, but in a different way,

the moment of this moment.
The future’s sepia already.


Notes:

In response to John Woodcock Graves the younger [with] Truganini,

Photographer unknown, Date unknown. Sepia toned, 15 x 10 cm Collection: Allport

Library and Museum of Fine Arts.