Lubra Creek

For the Aboriginal women who were stolen by sealers & whalers to live & work on Kangaroo Island

there is nothing that says you were here,

the mallee continues to grow in a tangle

with its gold-tipped crowns of green

and messy bark hanging down like scrolls,

that I wish I knew how to read

there is nothing that says you were here,

it is cool and muted as it was

the creek curving to a breathing sea

out       and      in

the mainland beckoning like a mirage

there is nothing that says you were here,

even though you were tied and lashed

for trying to escape across Backstairs Passage,

flesh sliced from your buttocks like a seal’s—

the blood is all gone now

there is nothing that says you were here

but the mingka bird—messenger of death,

who cries overhead as its ancestors did before.

Published Rewired Friendly Street Poets 32