"corroboree" poems
The song is gone; the dance
is secret with the dancers in the earth,
the ritual useless, and the tribal story
lost in an alien tale.
Only the grass stands up
to mark the dancing-ring; the apple-gums
posture and mime a past corroboree,
murmur a broken chant.
The hunter is gone; the spear
is splintered underground; the painted bodies
a dream the world breathed sleeping and forgot.
The nomad feet are still.
Only the rider's heart
halts at a sightless shadow, an unsaid word
that fastens in the blood of the ancient curse,
the fear as old as Cain.
6.8k
sticks and bones
remnants of an ancient
peoples
their song's spirit
traces over the land
indigenous man
your culture inlaid
in hand painting on caves
and dot paintings
painted on bark
tools of stone
fire stick
by creek waters
the midden mounds
bear testament
to your occupation
of these grounds
sing em
sing em
aboriginal
your heritage
stored perpetually
in this place
your foot treading
its vast expanse
generation
on generation
celebrating the corroboree dance
in the enveloping wings
of kookaburras
and in the bounding
of the ochre kangaroo
this land is the realm
of the original man
sing em
sing em
the history
of aboriginal clan
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 8:56 PM UTC