~ By Ali Cobby Eckermann. From her book: ‘little bit long time’ (Picardo Press)
I was born yankunytjatjara my mother is yankunytjatjara her mother was yankunytjatjara my family is yankunytjatjara I have learnt many things from my family elders I hace grown to recognise that life travels in circles aboriginal culture has taught me this
When I was born I was not allowed to live with my family I grew up in the white man’s world
We lived in a square house we picked fruit and vegetables from a neat fenced square plot
we kept animals in square paddocks we ate at a square table we sat on square chairs
I slept in a square bedI looked at myself in a square mirror and did not know who I was
One day I met my mother
I began to travel I visited places that I had already been but this time I sat down with family
We gathered together by big round campfires we ate bush tucker feasting on round ants and berries we ate meat from animals that live in round burrows we slept in circles on beaches around our fires we sat in the dirt on our land that belongs to a big round planet we watched the moon grow to a magnificent yellow circle that was our time
I have learnt two different ways now I am thankful for this that is part of my Life Circle
My heart is Round ready to echo the music of my family but the Square within me remains
The Square stops me in my entirety.
3 replies on “Squares and Circles”
Yes, yes, yes! I love Ali Cobby Eckermann. She has had a residency here in Melbourne. Whenever she speaks (I mean in person – but it’s in all her writing too), she bursts all the boundaries among us (to her own cost, I’ve heard her say), and everything and everyone turns tender. To reciprocate – that is our clear challenge.
Hi Meg, I can really relate. I was fortunate to meet Ali years ago when there was a poetry tent at the Yabun Festival in Sydney. It was raining and there were only a small group of us who turned up. We sat in a circle and chatted. There was no sense of hierarchy. She spoke plain and direct and in a way that left us/me with a tenderness that has never left.
In the recent published Blak poetry anthology, Fire Front, Ali Cobby Eckermann has an essay where she speaks of poetry as Medicine… “Medicine in and obligation out”
And included is a poem called “Unearth” which opens:
“let’s dig up the soil and excavate the past
breathe life into the bodies of our ancestors”
You can hear her speaking that poem if you search for The Fire Front launch on the Wheeler Centre website. (She’s the one in her car).