The land is crying for us to care
care that blood waters its soil more than rain
The seasons have shifted, but humanity stays the same
 
hurting the hurting
 
Our withering sensibility,
like dry eucalyptus ready to catch a flame
 
If it all burns, let our succumbing smoulder
and smoke smother everything
 
Be done with the dying
 
A cocoon is not a coffin for the butterfly,
but a temporary holding
 
In the morning, when heat signals our unfolding,
the children will rise
 
like mushrooms miraculously appearing from the darkness,
connected to everything
 
Like green soldiers—strong in trunk and deep in root—
they will thrive like we always promised.
 
With lily pond quiet fears and dragonfly dreams
rippling sonar signals into pregnant space,
they will rise
 
Rise with the white cockatoo,
who carries freedom on its wings
and a song in its lungs
so penetrating we’ll have no choice but to join in
 
with the crying
with the caring
with the change

I wrote this poem after a trip to visit my sister in the mountains. There, the air is crisp, and our kids play in the mud, climb logs, and follow the geese around the ponds. The cell phone reception is poor out there, so most of the time I'm offline—leaving space for other senses to come online.

I found myself reflecting on how much this society has forgotten the sacredness of children—how we are witnessing the martyrdom of thousands overseas, and the criminalisation of children as young as ten within a system that disproportionately targets First Nations youth here in the so-called 'lucky country.' The systems meant to uphold justice on this planet seem either powerless to stop this madness or unwilling to recognise it as a continuation of colonial violence.

Children have always been a sign of hope, and in their eyes, I see a fight already won. Still, I struggle to understand why we, the 'adults,' place the onus on children to remind us of our humanity—or expose our lack of it—through both their lives and their deaths.