We Are The Potter, You Are The Clay
poetry
We Are The Potter, You Are The Clay
Theona Councillor
“The Red Chair” by Timothy Neesam is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Your words they tell my story, from your white-washed point of view
You choose to see, with those rose-tinted lenses you see me thru
You’ve rarely come to ask me, but it’s alarming when you do
Mis-quoted, mis-judged and misunderstood, quick, that interview,
And . . .with no follow thru
Just little snip-its of information, as you snatch from here and there
Proclaiming ‘How we are reconciled’, and ‘Advance Australia Fair’
When I hear reconciliation, I cringe when you use that word
For we’ve never lived in harmony, regardless what you’ve heard
When our men came back from war, full of despair and full of pain
They watched as their white brothers got land, they did not receive the same
You ponder . . . if only blacks were a little more like us.
You’ve taken my power, you’ve changed my name
Your reasoning: I can somehow be the same
If only blacks did strive enough, if they only would but try
They could live alongside us, but you never truly believed that lie
You teach us how to follow the rules, you teach us your better way
Yet you never stop to think, maybe, we are the potter and you are the clay
You shy from our voice in parliament, you shy from the word ‘treaty’
But you would change your opinions, if you ever lived as me
Come make us part of the conversation, are you so afraid to try?
Afraid to find the common ground, to find where we see eye to eye?
Come listen, let this knowledge reside within, potential synergy to find the way
May this knowledge become your understanding, let it resonate, may it sway
Lest we forget
Federation . . . . the aborigine shall not be counted
Assimilation . . . . they need be more like us
Stolen generations . . . . it is for their own good
It says you are excluded
It says you are the dispossessed
It says you are. . . . Never. Quite. Good enough
It says the Aborigine shall not be equal, then you tell me it is me.
About the Poet