Ellen van Neerven, an Indigenous writer based in Brisbane, wrote these poems in response to Emily Kam Kngwarray’s Anwerlarr Anganenty (Big yam Dreaming) 1995 and read them at the Points of View: Australian art conversation on Kngwarray’s Big Yam Dreaming at NGV on Wednesday, 9 July 2014. See video recording below.
Van Neerven is the editor of Writing Black: New Indigenous Writing from Australia. Last year she won the David Unaipon Award for unpublished Indigenous writing and her debut novel Heat And Light will be published in September.
Whole Lot
Family, earth. Dingo, eagle. Fire, food.
Whole lot. It’s all of those things.
What we eat comes from our roots
If we stop sharing there will be nothing
We start with black
Let it get hold of you
Look at the stars
Or are you afraid to?
The day shows
Country spread open
A map of all that was and will be
Don’t forget it
I’m tracing it to remember
Don’t be scared
We are not here until we sit here
We sit in silence and we are open
There’s different kinds of time
I hope you’ll understand
Sing it
I want this to be here
When I leave again
I’ve been leaving a lot of times
But it doesn’t mean I want to
There is no easy way to cry
Tell them I’ll be back soon
When I come back and sit here
I want to still see mibun
Powering through the sky
Let me tell you with my skin
Under the earth we will find
Whole lot. It’s all of those things.
Generous
Her mother has just died
But she has bunya nuts
A shopping bag full
And she gives them to me
I fill of bowl of nuts
To take with me upstairs
Mostly to keep my hands busy
Peeling back my nerves
I’ve been finding it hard
To move through
And when you’re scared
You’re not very generous
She held my shoulder
When I spoke too fast
Wanting no-one to hear me
In the surf
To know and to watch her
Is to want to be brave
She crashed next to me
And split us fruit
She will wear any T-shirt
Black and blackfella
Put it on her
And take it to the streets
Those West End bars
With their pool tables
A Lemon, lime and bitters
And a good bloody cry
Fingers
Fingers find finger limes
In my country
We travel to the forest
The morning after rain
My fingers have been cold
In the mornings
We cross the coloured creek
Along a patient log
We walk towards frog calls
We walk away from winter
I want to stop on the way back
Get some finger limes
I’ve been homesick for them
But when we return
They are gone
My fingers have been numb
We go home anyway
And you make dinner
I’m sorry if I’m crying
I haven’t had anyone cook me a meal
It’s been a while, you know?
Something in me’s woken up
And I can see the pictures in my head
We talk about what we would
And what we wouldn’t eat
To stay who we are
For love
My fingers know more
Than I can fit into thought
Memory is the last defence we have
To cold fingers