Somewhere In The After: After 'We Are Going' by Oodgeroo Noonuccal

I would like to first acknowledge and share my deep respect for all Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, the original custodians of the land on which I base this poetry collection. These words are a humble tribute to their rich culture. My gratitude extends to elders, past, present, and emerging, for their wisdom enriches these pages. May this small collection contribute to the understanding, appreciation, and fostering of a dialogue between cultures.

This is to never forget, never not listen, never not feel, and never not write about injustice.


Table Of Contents

The Poet, The Spirit, Pleas

1869 Aboriginal Protection Act

Namatjira’s Palm Valley

In Conversation (a found poem)

Uluru Statement from the Heart


The Poet, The Spirit, Pleas

Tired, ashy, worn

Hands have touched

These pages for fifty-eight years,

And yet, her pen–somewhere at

The end or the start, somewhere in the after;

Where the smoke meets the spirit–remembers.

She says still; 

The heart dies in you.

And in her grandfather, the dispossession did not end,

It began; and in her, was everpresent. But her voice 

was loud and did not stutter. Her spirit inhabits, 

Still, it reads;

So long the wait has been,

So slow the justice, due.

  • Noonuccal, O., We are going: poems. Citadel Press, 1965, (12).


1869 Aboriginal Protection Act

Aboriginal of Australia.

Every child shall be deemed

With meaning and justice.

The absence of judgment 

Taken under this Act.

Enforce justice,

Recovery.

  • Aboriginal Protection Act (Vic), 1869.


Namatjira’s Palm Valley

The colonized brush

Strokes the heart. 

You were conditioned 

To be exploited. 

Custodian of the land

Paints with watercolor,

He dissolves onto the page.

Central Australia, your Mother

Passed this image down 

For you to show the world. 

Greens and oranges, 

Blues and gray,  hues

Of red fill the frame,

The color of anger.

Perhaps your brush felt the pain 

And in it, you claimed

The Palm Valley day. 

  •  Namatjira, Albert. Palm Valley, Art Gallery NSW, New South Wales, 1940.


Uluru Statement from the Heart

The people asked,

They plead once more. 

For the recognition of;

The voice 

They asked merely for what was theirs,
For reparation, for return.

If we can agree to acknowledge the land,

If they can welcome us,

If they can 

Practice song and dance and ceremony

For us; How could it be otherwise? 

That peoples possessed a land 

for sixty millennia and this 

sacred link disappears 

from world history in merely 

the last two hundred years?

This is the torment of their powerlessness

And it was never about power to them.

  • Uluru: Statement from the Heart, First Nations National Constitutional Convention, Uluru, Northern Territory, 2017.


In Conversation (a found poem)

The fascination of the white skin

 Was too much. 

Humans, in the past, sought 

To assimilate into one group;

The colour bar! 

It shows the meaner mind.

We’ve got to keep this fire burning.

What you reckon proper fee?

There are no trees, rivers

Hills, stars, that were not, 

are not someone’s kin.

So,

I’ll be there - 

to welcome you back, wrap my arms 

around you, and say, 

I’ve missed you. Welcome home.

  • Tucker, M. If Everyone Cared, Sydney: Ure Smith, 1977.

  • Coleman, Claire G. Terra Nullius, Hachette Australia, 2017.

  • Noonuccal, O. We are going: poems. Citadel Press, 1965, (12).

  • Heiss, A. Growing up Aboriginal in Australia. Black Inc, 2018.

  • Egan, T. Lingiari, V. The Gurindji Blues. The Aboriginals, 1997.

  • Kwaymullina, A. Living on Stolen Land. Magabala Books, 2020. 

  • Roach, A. Tell Me Why: The Story of My Life and My Music. Simon & Schuster Australia, 2019. 

Author’s Note:

I feared that I should not be writing about Aboriginal histories because I am not connected to the culture, but it is the way their stories have deeply moved me and Oodgeroo Noonnucal’s poems have informed me that has led me to challenge myself and the reader.

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