LAST NIGHT I HAD A DREAM

Last night I had a dream.

In this dream I was at school and reading a book. It was an old story, although not that old really – more ageless, the kind where time suspends and ceases to matter, and all becomes relevant.

This book, well it grabs me! It pulls me in, into its pages, and suddenly I am part of the book, and the book is me. This story is now my story, and the story of my people.

I am an aboriginal girl, slight and pubescent, and I am being held captive. By a man. This man, he is of colonial stock. Whiskery and rough, strong, abusive – his wooden cabin is dark and constrictive. He forces me to have sex with him, and wealds his power and strength over me like it’s his birthright to own my body.

But me, he doesn’t realise, I am strong too. In spirit. He thinks he has me beaten and down, but in my head I am always, always thinking of how I could possibly escape.

One day my chance comes. There is a lapse in his concentration and I make a run for it. Wildly, as fast as my legs will take me, across the cleared paddock, and he is yelling and running too - but does not have the desperation of a caged and tortured animal. I beat him to the safety of the forest. Here I am instantly protected by its tangle of fronds and rocky outcrops, and I run, and I scramble, and I run, until familiar landmarks greet me, then I slow for this is now my country and I know I will soon be reunited with my people.

Running, running for what seems an eternity, but then I smell the smoke of the campfires and hear the crying of babies, and suddenly I am running in to the cries and arms of my kin. Order is momentarily returned to my somewhat fragmented and terrified world.

But not for long. He is coming for me, as I knew he would, and we can hear his horse crashing through the bush. The whole camp panics and starts to scatter but suddenly he bursts into the clearing, his horse wild, and everything goes deathly still. He has his gun.

Despite the terror coursing through my body I know what I must do for my clan is now in danger – danger that I have brought to them. I step forward and present myself to him, despite the hands trying to hold me back, and perhaps the last thing I will see is the cold burning hatred in his eyes as he lifts his rifle to shoot me – but no, it will be the screams and bloodshed of my people as points his gun and systematically shoots them one by one.

And it is a bloody, bloody scene. A terrible, awful scene and I can barely close the book for the tears streaming down my face.

The teacher, he is giving the class back the results from the comprehension test of the story. Whilst the rest of the class flounders I see through my tears that I have received 92%, but I do not feel victorious about my distinction status. Far from it.

Outside now, and I am at work. The mob come in and I am helping them load their cars, and I am saying sorry to every single one of them as my heart is burning with the sins of my forebears – and a debt (I know!) that could never be repaid.

OUT ON THE DESERT PLANE

Screeching galah
under full moon twilight.
Beaming down
through ghost gum leaves.
Warm breeze
rustles
and dry grasses
buffle
and mountain
stands there still.
See me
on the hill
with arms outstretched
to the moon.
Eyes closed
spirit dreaming
and skin being licked
by milky white light.
Lighting my passage
through the dark night
and my
discontented dreams.