Poems

Language is a seed to respect. Respect is a seed to a nation.

A poem by Samara Ingram, Wiradjuri nation.

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Trees grow strong deep beneath the ground we stand.
Trees bring life trees breathe life into the paper,
paper from many trees marked by my paintings.
Paintings marked from the blood of my ancestors, swallowed into a soul of another.
A curious soul to teach,
a curious soul who sees.
A strange traveller is no longer strange.
Birthmark given from birth, marked black.
Father carries silent but gives strength,
carries strength but leaves footprints in my dreams.
I escape to the dreaming to see you.
Women have come passing a palm in the light of day,
Singing a tune of the motherland.
The motherland is crying, the storm is raging, the fire has been poked and we have been chosen to lead a way from darkness.
Chosen to leap forward against disease that fills the lungs with sickness.
We cannot be tricked by ignorance into silence.
Silence is not our way.
Silence is not who we are.
Travellers is what we have become to watch you tremble when we take our mother back.
Back to the Dreaming of the old ways when our mother was not sick,
back to the mountains were we sit, sit together where we are not judged by the colour of our skin.
I want to dance again listening to the sweet sound of the clap sticks with my brothers that I treat true and who I belong to.
I belong to Wiradjuri and it belongs with us, language belongs with us.
I want you to come with us to a journey to a place were you can see the sun gazing through the clouds,
the rain when it hits the ground, and we will wait and learn, just like you.

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Cite this page

Korff, J 2020, Language is a seed to respect. Respect is a seed to a nation., <https://creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/arts/poems/language-is-a-seed-to-respect>, retrieved 9 November 2024

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