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.
