Here is a poem for our animal friends.
At the lights, I find myself looking into his eyes –
Sad eyes.
Jostled from behind, his head pushes against the slats of the truck.
Is that pain on his face – or is it my own guilt?
Looking, flinching, remembering…
It’s veal stir-fry tonight.
Anna Pope, 24 January 2003
I love my home
my familiar –
The dust chokes me,
The heat blisters my skin, my lips.
There are cracks in the walls,
a small hole in the roof.
No ceiling,
No door,
Just a hessian curtain
Hanging from two nails.
It is a ‘hovel’.
I have been taught this since I came here.
It is no place to live,
It is a place where the unfortunate
can only exist.
But it is my home.
It is the place where all my family,
Those who survived,
Clustered together,
Faced each day
Together.
Cried, laughed,
Shared food,
Shared hunger.
Together,
We shared everything.
II
When I left my home
I left a part of me behind.
It was my place,
They were my cracks,
my existence.
My home was destroyed,
Trampled underfoot
by the War on Terror.
I do not understand this war,
But I understand terror.
My life was shattered while I was away, looking for food.
When I returned
The cracks were gone.
There was only rubble,
And dirt,
The crushed corpse of my mother,
The broken cradle,
The broken infant,
And a dusty piece of hessian.
Suddenly, we were not safe.
We had no home,
We did not belong.
The police were angry,
The survivors were fighting,
My sister, my father, myself,
We fled.
On the boat
I cried to remember my home,
my love.
I do not know what to feel anymore;
I am lost,
I am numb,
At sea.
III
A long journey later,
We reached this new land.
It was hot.
The sun blistered my skin, my lips.
Could I belong here?
Men with pale skin took us to a house.
They did not smile.
They shouted.
They were angry.
Like the people back home.
Angry.
I did not understand what they were saying.
They were like the police at home.
Perhaps they would kill us,
Perhaps we had not escaped?
My father was taken away from me,
Then my sister.
I was locked in a room.
I was given food.
Lots of food.
Strange food – but I soon got used to it.
I was no longer hungry.
Ever.
I had a bed with a mattress,
Blankets and sheets,
And a roof with no holes,
And a door with a lock.
It was not like home.
I was given books,
they taught me,
And now I understand
that I am not welcome here.
This is not my home,
I have no home any more.
IIII
I wait.
I wait for my father,
For my sister,
For all I have left,
For they are not with me…
I go to school.
I am with the normal Australian kids.
It is better for me,
It looks good.
I feel alone.
There is no one here who knows where I come from,
Where I have been,
Who I am.
At home when I cried
The tears left streaks on my dirty face.
Here, my face is clean
And I learn to cry inside.
Anna Stirling Pope
April 2004
Being a member of the human race, I am passionate about the way we treat other people.
Being an Australian, I am passionate about the need to improve the way we embrace reconciliation with the intent of making a difference.
Are we doing enough? No.
Are we still doing things that marginalise our traditional owners? Yes.
I wrote a choral work about this – check it out on youtube The Salt Pan
Here is the poem.
In my heart I belong,
but in my mind I see
that I am one of the different ones.
I am an exception.
Special allowances are made for me
so that I can remain in my own country.
Everything is a battle,
the land a meal of left overs –
doled out in cold charity.
‘Sorry’ comes late –
too much lost, unclaimable.
The past is not reconciled with the now…
The future is barren – cracked –
a salt pan after years of drought.
Anna Pope, Sept 2004
annapope 