Not yet, not ever
6th June 2022

Walking through a city park I wonder about reconciliation,
It is a cool morning, bright and fresh;

…stolen children, elders in chains, massacres.

I have read of indigenous plants, yams promising to extend the grain belt across half the country, of a culture and society tens of thousands of years old, something to be proud of;

…poverty and abuse, bondage and the killing of language, atrocities unspeakable.

Indigenous art inspires the murals in my local public place, indigenous flags fly at my football games, ‘are you indigenous’ the first question on the government forms I fill out;

…high imprisonment rates, low life expectation, social issues marking a gap too hard to move.

What then reconciliation to me, to us?
Useless arguments over Terra Nullius, bakers and authors,
two hundred years of misunderstanding, judging sixty-thousand that came before,
land ceded by the deadly, not yet, not ever,
and by us,
...not good enough.

Uluru & Kata Tjuta
(Ayers Rock & The Olgas