for the editor

'I Give You This Story'

I give you  this story,
this proper, true story,
People can listen.
I'm telling this while you've got time,
time for you to make something,
you know,
history
book.

I was thinking.
No history written for us.
when white European start here,
only few words written.
Should be more than that.

Should be written way Aborigine was live.
That floodplain.
My father, my mother, my grandfather
all used to hunt there, use ironwood spear.
No clothes then.

When I was growing up
good mob of people all around then.
Now people bit wicked.
My time never do little bit wrong,
otherwise get spear straight away.
Now, little bit cheeky mob.
Old time they would all be dead now.
Old people were hard.
I was frightened when young.
Only few people now,
But it easy for this mob.

Anyway, got to be made that book.
There's still time.
No man can growl at me for telling this story,
because it will be too late.
I'll be dead.

Bill Neidjie  c. 1920 – 23 May 2002

the place that dreamed the emu into being

           

   they say there are no emus there now

 but he is still there 

 if you know where to look  

sketching the outline

"where? which way captain ? "


arm outstretched. holding steady bearing against both pitch and yaw, hand palm down, tips weighted, as if balls of mercury, he sights the far hillside, westerly over the low isthmus and replies over the wind.....


"right over to the far west .....  that's where the smoke the past day was coming from... you see ? the large sand patch... what maybe, one, two hundred acres burnt right through. "


"there was a good deal of rain in it sir, when it swung round last night, good inch, inch and a half. enough to put it well out. But twas nothing in it beforehand to put a strike down though, was there?"


" lit in our honour no doubt, lieutenant. "


" seeing the lie of the land, i would imagine we are well known all the way to that chain of rugged mountains by now, sir "


outstretched arm now drifting south. fingers spidering over the near horizon, a blind man reaching into a bird nest.


"there is a big grove of timber on the south side of the bay. good water as well, given the size of the oaks. hand me up my telescope lad. "


"shall I send the boat round with the barrels come sun up, sir ? " 


"well, as no amount of lime can cover the taste of rat in our water and as we both are finding of late, that a man can not live on rum alone lieutenant, it would seem a prudent idea. bring the carpenter along to eye the timber..... it looks to hold some promise, this sound. "

Mirrabooka

Biami was kept very busy, guarding the tribes as they roamed throughout the earth, and he was very much troubled for them. He found that he could not watch over all of them at once; he knew he must have help to keep them from harm. Among the tribes there was a man called Mirrabooka, who was much loved for his wisdom, and the way in which he looked after the welfare of this people. Biami was well pleased with Mirrabooka, and when he grew old, promised him eternal life. Biami gave Mirrabooka lights for his hands and feet and stretched him across the sky, so that he could watch forever over the tribes he loved. And the tribes could look up to him from the earth and see the stars which were Mirrabooka’s eyes gazing down on them.

When in later times white invaders came from across the sea and stole the tribal lands, they did not know that this group of stars across the sky was Mirrabooka, and they renamed them. They named Mirrabooka the Southern Cross. And the eyes of Mirrabooka they called the Pointers. But it is really Mirrabooka there, stretched across the sky; he will be there forever, for Biami has made it so.

2 tanked

the seed of something

"The wise ones fashioned speech with their thought, sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve."   bhudda

take a seed and plant it in a place of your choosing. as to what type of seed it is, the decision is entirely yours. only make it something that will grow. something you can remember with hue, tone and form. with a beginning after end and betwixt former with later. something from a place you belong will do. perhaps it is even the seed of something nameless. unspoken of to others and only ever observed and considered in solitude.... mute.

yes nameless is probably best, as then it is yours and yours only.

the mind is everything what you think you become bhudda

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