Poems

Learning Resources

Dalgah
Jagunu
Yarabih barehbanu

make music
from the land
sing in dreams

~ Ellen van Neerven from ‘Gibam Garandalehn (Full Moon)’, Poetry In First Languages

• sun glint drift
  By Anne Elvey

  a name for what speaks     this day to
  water
  as creek replies 
  mirror

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• Muru Nanga Mai (Dreaming Track)
  By Lorna Munro

  Bulima Spirit Land D'harawal interpretations by Shannon Foster
  Bulima Spirit Land D'harawal interpretations by Shannon Foster
   
  muru nanga mai

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• Black Ophelia
  By Tony Birch

  deny the cross
  the holy word
  deny the gun
   

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• How Water Works
  By Tony Birch

  cup a hand
  skin and bone
  this water well
  a beating heart

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• Nyarlu Malga (Strong Woman)
  By Charmaine Papertalk Green

  ABA    a women’s daily dance for good    BARNDIMANMANHA
  JUGARNU    Spirits move within the memory ground    NHANGANHA 
  JURDU    Country bush broom stirs dust and land    WINDI-WINDIN 
  NYARLU    Universe sweeping with grandmothers hand    JUNDANMANHA

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• a water suite
  By Evelyn Araluen, Anahera Gildea

  ocean/saltwater/waitī/mulli tahnee
   
  where i’m from the sand is cold     at night, the shells empty, grey
  cloud scudding like

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• Birrarung Billabong
  By Tony Birch

  Sitting with your open coffin thinking and not thinking I want to be with the world and you. I knock against the grain of wood and want to know if you remember the day we took the bikes to the river and rode along the bank against a current willing us home to safety. At the billabong we circled sacred water, threw away our shoes and socks and spla…

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