Writer:-David Harris, Friendly Street Poets
South Australia
ANCIENT TREE
I see you are enjoying my old tree.
Its massive trunk thrusts up from ancient roots
through thin crust of recent settlement,
connecting ancient history to today.
My grandma bore my father under
this ancestral tree. Her mother, too,
before, and back through generations to
ancestors now in spirit worlds.
This would have been my birthplace too,
but we had moved away by then.
Connection to our country almost lost –
a yearning I have felt throughout my life .
But that was long ago, the scars are healing.
I, too, now have left this world, my name
no longer heard. But as a spirit,
I return to this, my tribal home.
With your hands upon this tree, the energy
you feel, a timeless moment between
deepest past and now – we share.
Welcome to my country, my brother.