The wound will live in you
And no one will show you the way
You will have to find it
After long journeys over rocky ground
And frozen icy landscapes
Do not expect the world to understand
The hidden ancestral depths
This is a shallow place we live in now
Where we have cut ourselves off at the roots
And enacted the most terrible of wounds
Out of our own
Upon indigenous peoples
We stole their history and their stories
But the neglected and abused know this pain well
When the frozen cold world we were born into
Denied us any kind of understanding or warmth
So now in the mornings I will listen to music and dance
Down those pathways that you walked
Reading the signs about how your war wounded father build
All of these dwellings
With only a pittance to sustain him
And fuck all help from the government
He never lived to tell the tale
And that is why you call Jasper and I
Leading us via the way we can experience it all
We sit silently watching a mother and daughter chat
Just as you and I did Mum
On that day you told me of how
Nana put into domestic service
And you found a way out
A way to run away
Even though it brought the fury of hell
Down upon you
So if my sister called me a naughty child
Who was too full of life
When I look deep into that child’s eyes
Now
I see so much more shining out
From within the depths of them
Than I ever could before
There is defiance there and sadness
A lonelieness but also a knowing of heaven
God know it has taken me so much of my own deep suffering
To finally birth the deepening compassion
I pray it will not be too late for me Mum and Dad
To make something whole and good of my life
And to make you proud
For God knows you and my ancestors
Both suffered so very much
In silence
Emerging From The Dark Night 