Man of my mother’s people,
in your hair of cotton wool,
I counted strands of wisdom untold.
In your eyes luminous,
I saw pearls
picked by my mother;
a naked beaded maiden
in silky black skin
running wild in Iva Valley.
Man of my mother’s people,
in your brows
like garden ridges,
I saw the ancient fruits,
my mother, girlish,
lips cherry black,
eating nuts and berries
of Iva Valley.
Man of my mother’s people,
in the strongness of your bones,
your aged body
firm and fatless,
I saw my mother
In lightness of limbs
as drops of water
from a pot
steady on her plaited head
made strings of gems
on her body
sensuous in camwood
as she walked the Iva Valley.
Man of the mother’s people,
today as they put camphor
and perfumes foreign
on my mother’s defrosted body,
as they put my mother
in coffin ghost-white,
man of my mother’s people,
as I sought solace
in your sunken eyes
now as cold as the coal-tarred road
that carried my mother far away,
there were no berries
nor precious stones
only broken lorries
and bones of the dead
as we meandered past Milikin-Hill,
sitting oppressive
in dangerous modernity
on Iva Valley
and the heads of the ancient ones,
defiled in rust, petrol and blood.
Man of my mother’s people,
they say Iva is like a woman
in incestuous pregnancy
her belly swollen with child;
her own flesh and blood –
her sons,
first Trade Unionists
grounded by the
heavy arms of exploiters
before they could walk,
their bodies,
ridden in white bullets,
were dumped into her,
as they sucked her blackblood,
vampire-like
for coal.
They say the veins of Iva
no longer run black
but red in blood;
the vampire has sunk its teeth elsewhere,
suckling black blood for oil.
You see,
man of my mother’s people,
with stories strong
of roaming restless souls
in Iva Valley,
for fear of ghosts,
they have run round the corner
Nine Miles,
opened the bowels of the Earth
for a new road
to cut off Iva
now in labour.
But ghosts fly!