Three Stories, Three Songs.

Three Stories, Three Songs.

I have travelled through stories.

In this half of the story 

the dead walk beside me.

I sense my mother’s whispers,

hear my grandfather’s songs,

touch an emu gouged in stone,

see ancient paintings in a cave,

feel primordial shapes labour from the sea.

Stars move inside me.

Earth is a pulse beneath my feet.

I own nothing, am part of everything.

To all that is, has been, will be, I sing

“Mother, sister, father, brother,

I am earth and to earth I belong.”

Because I have travelled through stories.

I know the other half, 

the one where I am trapped in dislocation,

where my tongue in confusion splits

and my tears drop on stone.

Alien gods close their ears.

My name is mocked. 

My warrior forebears are ridiculed.

The land does not love me.

It slaughters my brothers.

There are no lovers to take me

From the edge of brokenness.

My father’s ancient songs are lost.

Into the emptiness I sing

Am I nothing more than just 

another consequence of conquest?

Because I have travelled through stories

I dream of songs new and old

where a different sense of belonging 

is forged in anguish 

and tempered in compassion. 

It embraces place, history and culture,

rejoices in difference,

celebrates shared humanity,

touches, palm to palm,

weeps for another’s sorrow,

shares in another’s joy.

Listen. Can you hear the music?

Voices in sweet harmony 

sing of new belonging,

a transcendent humanity,

and the chorus is this-

beauty is not found in 

temples and shrines but in the 

home of sinful men like us.

First Published at Around the Fire 6 (Praxis)