Poem
Lisa Bellear
Beautiful Yuroke Red River Gum
Beautiful Yuroke Red River Gum
Beautiful Yuroke Red River Gum
For Northlands Secondary College Mobile Rebel School
Sometimes the red river gums rustled
in the beginning of colonization when
Wurundjeri
Bunnerong
Wathauring
and other Kulin nations
sang and danced
and
laughed
aloud
Not too long and there are
fewer red river gums, the
Yarra Yarra tribe’s blood becomes
the river’s rich red clay
There are maybe two red river gums
a scarred tree which overlooks the
Melbourne Cricket Ground the
survivors of genocide watch
and camp out, live, breathe in various
parks ’round Fitzroy and down
town
cosmopolitan
St Kilda
And some of us mob have graduated
from Koori Kollij, Preston TAFE,
the Melbin Yewni
Red river gums are replaced
by plane trees from England
and still
the survivors
watch.
© 1999, Lisa Bellear
From: Landbridge: Contemporary Australian Poetry, John Kinsella (ed.)
Publisher: FACP,
From: Landbridge: Contemporary Australian Poetry, John Kinsella (ed.)
Publisher: FACP,
Poems
Poems of Lisa Bellear
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Beautiful Yuroke Red River Gum
For Northlands Secondary College Mobile Rebel School
Sometimes the red river gums rustled
in the beginning of colonization when
Wurundjeri
Bunnerong
Wathauring
and other Kulin nations
sang and danced
and
laughed
aloud
Not too long and there are
fewer red river gums, the
Yarra Yarra tribe’s blood becomes
the river’s rich red clay
There are maybe two red river gums
a scarred tree which overlooks the
Melbourne Cricket Ground the
survivors of genocide watch
and camp out, live, breathe in various
parks ’round Fitzroy and down
town
cosmopolitan
St Kilda
And some of us mob have graduated
from Koori Kollij, Preston TAFE,
the Melbin Yewni
Red river gums are replaced
by plane trees from England
and still
the survivors
watch.
From: Landbridge: Contemporary Australian Poetry, John Kinsella (ed.)
Beautiful Yuroke Red River Gum
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