----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, 24 March 2000 7:20
Subject: Re: [recoznet2] A Sad Duty
All the best Jim. I've included one of my favourite Jack Davis
poems, one of his most powerful, I think, as an act of remembrance.
Tim
================
Jack Davis
Aboriginal Australia
to the others
You once smiled a friendly smile,
Said we were kin to one
another,
Thus with guile for a short while
Became to me a
brother.
Then you swamped my way of gladness,
Took my children from my side,
Snapped shut the lawbook, oh my sadness
At Yirrkala's plea denied.
So, I remember Lake George hills,
The
thin stick bones of people.
Sudden death, and greed that kills,
That
gave you church and steeple.
I cry again for Worrarra men,
Gone from
kith and kind,
And I wondered when I would find a pen
To probe your freckled mind.
I mourned again for the Murray Tribe,
Gone too without a trace,
I thought of the soldiers' diatribe,
The
smile on the Governor's face.
You murdered me with rope, with gun,
The massacre my enclave,
You buried me deep on McLarty's run
Flung into a common grave.
You propped me up with Christ, red tape,
Tobacco, grog and fears,
Then disease and lordly rape
Through the
brutish years.
Now you primly say you're justified,
And sing of a nation's glow,
But I think of a people
crucified--
The real Australian story.
>Well
people,
>
>I'm off to the funeral of Jack Davis tomorrow,Friday,
at 10:30am at Karrakatta
>Cemetery in Perth.
>
>Poet,
Playwright, Humanist,
Activist.
>
>RIP
>
>
>
>
>|\/\/\/|*
Jim Duffield*
GMT+08 * [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>|
o o|
>C _) "[Colonialism] creates a
culture in which the ruled
>| ,____| are constantly tempted to
fight their rulers within
>| / the
psychological limits set by the latter."
>|
|
>
Ashis Nandy
>
>********http://www.multiline.com.au/~anzac/***************
>*
12 Hurrey Place BEECHBORO WA 6063
AUSTRALIA *
>* Ph:
61 8
9377-7871
Fax:61 8 9378-7472
*
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