Community

to begin, living in a community
just meant being out bush instead of town
yes, there were Aboriginal people
I hoped I’d get on OK with them

then I worried whether I was behaving right
should try and talk to people more
how slow I was at language
struggled to understand

not much of a connection, you might think
but the world had turned-
Aboriginal people at the centre
me on the fringe
it wasn’t easy, I didn’t feel good a lot of the time

this discomfort of mine
didn’t weigh on the community of course
but they laughed with me when they could
taught me how everyone was related
the way the country joined people across families
the ancestor creatures in the ground and rocks-
how could I have not thought of them?

little things – I thought they were little
the way to make a fire, sit with it
the need to live outside
see what was happening
see the sky
to sleep next to your children

all this
I have from these people

it feels, strangely, like I’d known it before
but had forgotten-
did my family want to forget?-
my grandparents’ grandparents
on the southern fringe of this desert

somewhere in my bones I know
this is a continuing of a story
of two peoples
and their love for this dry country
a story that went wrong somewhere
and is finding its way again


©Meg Mooney 2004