Boragee

Buna Gives You Life

Buna ngkucarnga. I sip the water from the water hole I lay in. It tastes of dirt, rock and tree. My back touches the rocks and roots that watch over me. I look at my reflection in buna, my brown face burnt from the sun from walking, walking long to reach yallanya buna. Nykoo monga lays covering ngmun and falling into buna. Ngyu nitchingee iron bark, paper bark watching and waiting in the reflection of buna. Nykoo mula grabs the roots of the tree. Yalla, here in buna I will have my child. I scream. There is no one here to hear but Boogagee. My boroo laying underneath like a stone, heavy and swollen. Soon I will turn this buna to blood, blood of ngyu and the woman who brought life, yalla, yallanya buna. I will pull nykoo child out of this buna and show the sun, nykoo child is here like I was born, like the women before me, she is here. I will look down and say, ‘Ngyu munka munka nitchingee yondoo.’ She will not be the last.