Coiled in my cells is history,
black loch, divided clan, coarse heather,
farmed croft, a wooden boat.
I am an Australian airman’s German burial,
jack boots, red segments of flag, an emptiness
returned to Bealiba station.
I am imperial greed’s claimed land
turned to dust, stolen from the First People.
In my blood, a shredded testament, rocks and sheep –
fleece of prosperity, dwindling bush, wild
Wimmera, coastal salt spray of Port Melbourne.
Oily rainbows, red bricks, sheet metal, passing
ships, a sapphire and diamond ring binds
midwife and New Hebrides missionary.
I am Seymour, droplets of Goulburn River.
I am the dead, the dying.
I am Blois, a village in France, Gippsland, Moe.
Sawn wood, hammer and plane handmade.
Ash of razed houses and plentiful bush,
life preserved by field of corn.
Generations in tents, before I was born.
I am terrestrial orchid, narrow creek passing
dairy and cow, faces pulled at the train,
memories my mother can no longer retrieve.
I am the damage from great grandfather walking
into the dam, flowing from grandmother,
to mother, to me.
I am a history of jagged fragments.
From silence I speak.