we the ancestral boat
By First Nations Students
Published 1 December 2025
blue
red
urban
water
whale
white
songs
songlines
stars
love
green
bubbles
family
sitting on the sparkling
dark blue waters
as one, we the ancestral
boat drifts knowingly
to our belonging where
we trust the protection.
This illustration was hand-drawn by a First Nations student and manually digitised by Red Room Poetry staff. To honour the integrity of First Nations voices, poems have been reproduced as close as possible to their original text, with light editing for clarity.