by Tony Birch
for performance of capital operation
inducing pain loss of life
additional sum of five pounds
47
7.
regarding above the native surgeon
is bound to catalogue to inscribe
quarterly returns of deceased
Be with the Lord
48
The Oath of a White Man In sickness and in war perhaps five hundred have been kil ed – in the last fifteen years chiefly by neighbouring tribes – I state under oath as a white man of strong character and conscience that something about one hundred and fifty natives have been killed, no, slaughtered in one night – the savagery occurred at Pawl Pawl an island on the lakes nearby the settlement of Melbourne – the party of marauding blacks and mongrels was led by the notorious xxxx – another fifty were slaughtered by the native police each of them drunkards along with Sydney aborigines attached to the hunting party – the greatest sin yet committed by these primitives is that they have made off with a white woman following additional col isions with good white people who mean them no harm – we now live in fear for the loss and purity of our women – and having now attempted to enact civilisation on this damned country I am at a loss – if God Himself and His only Son Jesus cannot bring humanity to this land then we have no choice but to slaughter every final one of their breed before it is their savagery that destroys us – AMEN
Recorded under Oath of the Christian Bible on 29th day of March 1857 before the Legislative Council in Her Majesty’s Colony of Victoria regarding matters pertaining to the Select Committee of the Legislative Council on The Aborigines 1858–59.
49
Razor-wire Nation
we ran a line of wire
across the empty beaches
in a time before
feet met the shore
while love is an empty box
we busily tend the cages
gun-turret warriors
for a razor-wire nation
50
Race War
Elders negotiate
medieval spikes of
a lonely park bench
miserable winter night
home a rotting blanket
a colonial trinket
passed down by He
of the syphilitic nose
John Batman who came
with shirts & beads
scissors smoking mirrors
gun powder & guns
this is the place for a vil age
said John hand on Bible &
treaties to wipe your arse on
the homeless cut & banished
the gutter a whiteman’s gift
for theft on the streets
51
Gallows – near La Trobe Street clear rising ground
our
possession
two posts upright
clean-cut
forest
wood
twenty feet upward
reaching
for
Heaven
cross beams sturdy
drop
six
feet
brass-hinged prop
the
weight
of
death
two men Bob and Jack
irredeemable
each
Australian savages
men
of
superstitious
demeanour
possessing passions
wild
blacks
attended by Reverend
in
the
night
with
justice prayer pannikins
pure
of
water
crowds electric
gathered
in
finery
at the moment
when
the
darkness
tellingly meets
light
holy
days
52
drawn by beasts
black
travelling
van
hidden from sight
cloaked
painted
cloth
Sheriff
Governor
Constable
Chaplain
Soldiers
a raucous parade
following
in
their
wake
crowds impatient
free
men
and
women
who crow for
Crown
and
country
the murderers as soothed
as
terrorised
children
tenderly handled by
an
executioner
obtained
for the sum of ten pounds
and
anonymity
staunched their hands
a
caring
father
rope a neck knot
at the ear marking love
a swift motion shadows
drop
and
sway
meeting the end
dressed
suitably
53
white
shirt
white
stockings
white
caps
bodies
swing
creaking
to
and
fro
finally the settling
for
the
amusements
of a needy crowd
three
thousand
Christians
gathered on hills trees
astride
empty
coffins
fondling strangers
rum
at
hand
good work done
the
pair
cut
down
motionless silenced
guilt
unspoken
enclosed for
the
reception
of
burial
meeting a maker
in
common
ground
the restless souls
heathens
gather
bodies with bodies
collapsing
cages
bone
meeting
bone
fusingbecomingone
54
Tunnerminnerwait
his name was Waterbird
and on the morning of
execution he announced
I have three heads
one for your noose
one for your grave
one for my country
55
WATER
Merri Creek at Eastern Freeway,
Clifton Hill, 2020
How Water Works
cup a hand
skin and bone
water well
pulsing molecules life
one two three
thousand years
twice daily rises
a gentle fall
flow stories ask –
who are we
within this world
let water run
circle settle be
bowl of arctic water
moving slowly south
sleeping ebbing rising
upwelling loops of life
seconds centimetres
patience slowly spirit
beauty and humility
shape shift onward
through air bodies
entwined with other waters
&n
bsp; in plants in soil in Country
61
from pregnant clouds
rain on my roof
drumming announcing
the birth of love
62
Black Ophelia
deny the lord
the holy word
deny the gun
the wire and hoe
caste and colour theft
of ground of bodies
now be and be
with the drifting river
with spirit water
go
to the water
the water
to the water
go
to Black Ophelia
shimmering within
a sheet of glass
open lips rising breasts
she sounds – always was
always will be …
63
Companions in Death
Robert O’Hara Burke
second-in-command
William John Wills –
not to mention Mr Gray
except King: the Survivor –
died at Coopers Creek
left themselves behind
travelled as ghosts
in search of running water
the men arrived at Carlton
sat and witnessed a monument
monolithic by any standard
erected to their own heroic deeds:
the first to cross the continent of Australia
– the first lie
Burke failed to home himself in life
the bones of Wills lay waiting
at the mark of holy darkness
yet here they are ever-living
amongst thousands of dead at rest
prime ministers paupers an absent Elvis
and my nanna – pas ed – 4 July 1996
she rests in the ground
cold six feet down
a lane away from men
not men but suffering statues
of a hollowed nation
64
late in the appropriate dead of night: full moon
crescent moon
no moon
slight breeze
high winds
stillness
every night
any night
all year round
Alma Marie May her plot unmarked
lying humbly with husband and youngest son bruised and lost to violence
calls to Burke and Wills with offerings
water a cup of tea sage advice and a question –
‘What were you white boys thinking?’
65
Birrarung Billabong
Sitting with your open coffin thinking and not thinking I want to be with the world and you. I knock against the grain of wood and want to know if you remember the day we took the bikes to the river and rode along the bank against a current willing us home to safety. At the billabong we circled sacred water, threw away our shoes and socks and splashed through tea-stained water and stomped in mud. We were something more than wild boys that day. We were our mother’s babies, from her womb, from her waters, that broke at morning and set us on our way. You had never been happier and you led the way and you told me that we should never leave, that we should stay with the water and be the water. Your own words nudging me, shyly and with all the love you held in your heart. On our way home, we rode in the darkness below and a blood-stained sky above. We were not afraid, not me nor you. Our hair was long and curled and magical, our eyes the richest brown, our skin carried water and water carried skin.
The sounds of the river rushing at the falls a shared pulse. I understood then that we were never so alive and we would never be again. I stand and bend forward and kiss your cold skin and know that you are not here in this squat box. You were never here, little brother. You will always be with the water.
66
At the Creek
for Simon Ortiz
my brother warms a life
on worn slabs of stone
resting with our bodies
I wait on the mountain waters
to drift downstream for us
he tells me I must go
before the ghosts arrive bearing
blankets and beads willing
pagan souls to prayer
I must be the bird
of every journey
my brother tells me
it is now the time of flight
you must go he tells me
before they whip you
with lead and chains
at the creek sad boys sniffing
chrome and jerk and roam
their tin-men faces hidden
grotesque beneath bridges
heads bowed to the water
watching a body drift by
bloated and beaten
a boy-angel of broken wings
67
I call across soaked skies to my brother fading now
he does not know me
and turns away in shame
away from love from me
for his heart for him
Simon at my side
shifts and asks without speaking –
‘When they voice the claim
your brother does not exist
what does your heart feel?’
68
The Arteries
road train hammers a highway
eight ribbons of black tar
four lanes in four lanes out
burying the old creek like a
euthanised geriatric crying
for the mercy of her children
roads were diverted to spare
the sons of private education
straw boaters monogram blazers
the old school ties of an older city
holding sway along riverside mansions
founded on the lie of foundation
the waterways of Country
beaten raped clogged dead
the refuse you leave behind
our heart a parched lake
veins reduced to rust
denied flow in the name of progress
69
Swimming Whole
current stained
deep time
clay impressions
of bodies
lazily baked
with heat
the first day
of summer
schooling a
life away
silt dusts
our contours
we smoke cigarettes Viscount
dive from
pigeon-rock
wonder fuck
the night
you the river
this place
the temple
we worship
earth and water
our salvation
70
Water
two drops on eucalypt
one striking dust
deluge in a city
drainway
from gifting sky
skin of wet children
dog lapping puddles
we are of water
water ways
71
Gunnamatta
could I know the ocean
deserve to be with it?
a twelve-year-old alien
waiting on the sandhill above
hesitant ecstatic witnessing
life a crackling force
birds of the north knew
hovered sensed excitement
in a lost boy’s body
approaching the roar
waves running west
took hold and drew me
the pool’s searching depths
sacrificed my body
to plunging sea and salt
water stilled me
leathered kelp caressed
soundings through me
cut grazed broken
bled onto rocks
the foaming
surf
72
cried electric
reborn in holy waters
I could die here
let me die
73
Beneath the Bridge
from the hooded hills behind
Beruk spoke – English – to tell
there was no place in the mountains
for him for his father’s father
no home away
away from Country
a story runs with the river
circles back to meet itself
moves on to meetings
where waters gather speak
saltwater fresh water knowing
a bay born young of men
creviced women of lore
lay itself down a blanket
bedding the old river below
moving toward the sea
ground was gouged sacred waters
scarred shifted held in custody
the conjugal rights of a colony
poisoned life at the throat
possession nine-tenths of law
the ultimate failure
when the monster span thundered
across the west the bridge gave way
thirty-five workers came falling
74
and the Birrarung lay waiting to gather the dead together
she gave their souls a home
comforted fear and sadness
and returned battered bodies
to riverbank mourners clasping
soft hands of fatherless children
75
Desecrate
creeks flow into rivers
into bays to the ocean
a child was plucked
from a drain
from soil to knowing sky
life in each drop of rain
a child was plucked
from a drain
our hearts a composition
of 73 per cent pure water
a child was plucked
from a drain
sacred blood of Country
running with a song
a child was plucked
from a drain
a bird in a bath
infant of the womb
a child was plucked
from a drain
76
water ran like a kid on
the street at sunset
a child was plucked
from a drain
the great flood’s arrival
washing our sins of stain
a child was plucked
from a drain
early one autumn morning
playing with boats in drains
a child was plucked
from a drain
and stolen
77
The Great Flood of 1971
we gathered with the last summer
that morning a school-day pact
to be with our river before winter
