Poems

My Mother The Land

A poem by Phill Moncrieff, Western Australia

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A group of Aboriginal people sits around a campfire.
You are my Mother, my Mother the Land
Your bloodline aches today
The secret you spoke of remains no more
Our hearts, they cry of dismay
 
Our brothers before and them before that
Felt the brunt of the whiteman's curse
And as their blood hit the sun from the whiteman's gun
The spirits began to disperse
 
So we turned to the land, our Mother the Land
For comfort, our refuge at last
But the feeling was gone, brown children now born
Not black like you gave in the past
 
Please take me back my Mother the Land
The white man he'll never accept me
The milk that you part will soothe my heart
And your spirit of place will hold me
 
The enchantment of night around camp firelight
With your children black faces smile broadly
As they talk of the day, in the Aboriginal way
And the power of the land, so Godly
 
They talk of your plains and inland rains
That send your rivers raging
And the animals that roam in their hot desert home
But your landscape is rapidly changing
 
You are my Mother, my Mother the Land
You provide me for thousands of years
But now your soul, like a rock waterhole
Is drenched, not from water, but tears
 
The sadness you feel as you weep on your own
While your children remain scattered and torn
The white system of life, it cuts like a knife
And the Old People are weary and worn
 
This gentle race which took it's place
On your earth and your rivers and seas
Now understands from the whiteman's hands
That their skin is but a disease
 
Broken pride in their hearts, they live torn apart
And the colour is bred from their skin
And ancient tribes whose culture was alive
Are gone like a leaf in the wind
 
Please take me back my Mother the Land
Embrace me like Mother and Child
The message goes out from your children who shout
Only visitors and there for a while
 
But the Mother has been raped by the white mans' greed
Her spirit has turned into sand
And the meaning of life to all mankind
Remains with My Mother the Land

A poem by Phill Moncrieff. Thank you Phill for allowing me to publish this poem of yours!

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Cite this page

Korff, J 2020, My Mother The Land, <https://stage.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/arts/poems/my-mother-the-land>, retrieved 8 November 2024

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