Tadra / Buar (To Dream)

I write to you my brother 

I am weary 

I write from the liquid salted landscapes

I write from within the confines of colonial borders

Where the songs of my people 

Sit on our eyelids and on the insides of our mouths 

Here we work in the trenches 

In the space between who we were and who we are now 

We mine the graveyards and we exhume the dead

We spend our days in libraries 

Reading against the grain 

For new truths, for revelations 

I write to you my brother 

I am weary

I write you from our place of beastly tides 

From cyclonic turmoil 

Here we wear the past like the shrouds 

Like medallions seared into chests 

Reminding us of the weight of loss 

I want to lay my head in damp earth 

Of my fathers plantations

Listen to the language of trees and insects  

And dream 

I write to you my brother 

I am weary  

The murky well of my dream 

I plunge my aching hands into the ocean 

They emerge as telephones 

I called the past 

I spoke to the fathers of my fathers, father 

Those who bent the winds 

I spoke to the mothers of mothers, mother 

They who carried first seeds 

And harvested first crops 

My words felt heavy on my tongue 

Familiar but strange 

We talked of futures past 

We talked of circular stories 

We talked long into the waking 

i read your words                 to hear your voice

from between the peaks of this land where oceans are raindrops 

i want you to know 

            there’s no fear in your feelings

because i share the plea of your desire

despite the distance between where we stand

            my fingers in a lake

            your toes dipped in sand

i think of mornings we talked 

the roads we still walk and

it’s true -

            i hear you

i hear you the way               i hear twigs break at the touch of my shoulders

pushing through the death of country 

to reach somewhere i can sit 

            maybe take off my shoes 

soak my blisters or 

            unwrap my own aching - but                                                                     

there are too many bends to turn 

boulders to push - and

if i stop now then i worry i won't start again

so i keep walking

even if my feet drag through mud while i cling to ghost gum branches

i will move

i will move my body             to bend with the shape of this landscape 

to earn my belonging in sight of my ancestors

waiting for me at the end of this journey

            through mountains and forests 

            across plains and rivers

even though i won’t know when 

the end will be savoury yet sweet

            salted from my sweat 

            rich with my blood

my blood feeds                     the freedom of sunlight across clifftops

            the precipice of where i’ll finally sleep 

            closer to you than we might think

you can write to me of the dreams of your mothers and fathers

while i remember the land on which i once stood

waiting for the day i’ll be born again

            when you read my words

            can you hear my voice?