Bring comfort to us all.

Give us wisdom and strength,

For we have not yet found ourselves

In this now alien land.

This land we thought was ours for ever,

Now peopled with racists,

Murderers, manipulators,

Who know too well the art

Of conquer, enslave, kill and destroy.

Oh Trugganner,

Let your spirit rise from the foreign museum

And walk with us in our grief.

In our once loved Native land,

The love that sustains us,

Is what our race was

Before the invaders came.

Oh Trugganner,

As you cried in the past,

So too now do your people cry

And have cried for the last two hundred years.

Oh Trugganner,

Will the dreamtime spirits of our race

One day rise with us

As they did with you,

To the whispering sounds of stalking feet

With our guns in our hands

And an ambush plan

The nullas, the spears and stones?

Or will we in servitude,

Die like you?

And will 'modern' scientists rave and drool

Over our bones

As they 'religiously' did

With Lanney and you?

Oh Trugganner!

Kiltara-Biljara* (Eagle Hawk)

For Den Boy

You came to me in your ninth year!

I looked and saw a tired, hurt

Forty-year-old man.

Your eyes bore the pain

Of rejection and sorrow.

I turned away, unable to meet your eyes.

I fought to find the lost child within you

And belated knew, the child was never there.

In spite of all the pain

You trod the survival path.

Unfolding daydream wings

You flew high in the sky

Rejecting your Mother Earth.

Like the eagle, free and proud and strong,

You took as your domain the sky.

I watched your wings grow stronger

And when you were fifty-five, going on thirteen,

You took to the air, for better, for worse,

And soared like the eagle tribe,

Refusing to travel no tracks, but your own.

You wanted to accept my love

But dared not take it.

Your experience of rejection

Still lingered in your heart

And warned you to accept no love

No matter how freely given.

Love hurts too much

And you are battle-scarred

From too many rejected loves.

Soar

Little boy, old man!

Soar to the highest places.

Take care to rest in trees

Where crocodiles roam

You'll be safe and happy there,

Crocodiles can't climb trees.

I'll miss your going.

* The Barkendji (Mildura) tribal word for Eagle Hawk

Mongarlowe

(Written at Judith Wright's place)

Oh Virgin Earth

I hear your cries of pain

As you toss and turn,

Denying me

My much needed sleep.

Ravished by man's rape

In the ugly past,

He left you

Bleeding, gasping,

Causing you

To menstruate

Out of time.

Gum trees twist and turn,

Sadly shedding eucalypt tears,

Which merge with your spilt blood

Seeping, souring your tormented soul.

A lubra wails by the creek.

Ghastly monuments

To your lost virginity.

Leave Straddie Unabridged

The serpent glides her way

Painfully and methodically

Over the glistening sands,

Making her way across the island

Of Minjerribah.