Undoing invasion:
Australia Day, 26 January 2020
The phone rings. A pregnant daughter
Updates me about my first grandchild.
A bubble of excitement forms as
I hear her care and concern.
“We don’t want Australia Day.”
“An invasion day baby?” I tease.
But now she has more time, a
Window of opportunity for natural birth.
I feel that window, look through,
Call to the soft silent spirit that
Seems both near and far.
Maybe invasion day is right.
My skin senses this ripple in time
As once and here wash into now.
In that spot, I know there is vitality.
The life force grows strong.
I see a dry continent and,
This January, a fire-ravaged landscape.
Day time becomes the blackness of night.
Houses burn; animals die.
Pathetic, predatory patriarchs made
This moment. They dug, drained and
Divided our soulful world.
Deceiving country, they incubated change.
Now change comes word by word,
Person by person as heritages —
Aboriginal, Settler, and Multicultural —
Coagulate, brindle and un-make invasion.
I call to my first grandchild,
“Be strong and be born, little one.
Join our world — join us,
We, the throng that seek the Heart[1].”
That ripple of time becomes a
Quiver of breeze stroking my skin.
Inhaling scents of country, I imagine a future:
Australia ‘unvaded’; our earth sustained.
[1] The Uluru Statement from the Heart, launched by Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders peoples in May 2017, calls on all Australians to affirm voice, treaty, and truth in working towards reconciliation.
