Chemotherapylong tendrils of green
dragged by currents strong enough to drown a freighter like the thoughts of the dying I try to grasp them follow where they lead but they are fluid and reject my need to hold them I find myself drifting my mind stripped of certainty like coral bleached clean the ghostly bones once a thousand colours lie still |
East Of Hobart January 2013These blackened shores once knew feet
bare and hardened by salt and bush from a time never measured by clocks knew again the feet of men in chains Port Arthur Eagle Hawk Neck Dunalley they hemmed the fringes of Marion Bay, Boomer Bay, Susan’s Bay, Frederick Henry Bay to the ferry beyond Dodges Hill. Fear stalks these beaches now the sky above roars red lungs fill with smoke dreams become portraits done in charcoal The water is cold it will carry the charred remains to bury with the kelp and shells on beaches such as these a returning home |
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Coming of Age
There’s a tiny nun in my room She looks down on the place I used to sleep Silent Dark in her vigil like a friendly crow In my mother’s house My childhood self never sleeps She lies awake all night Ears pricked in the darkness Listening to her grandmother sigh each breath Waiting for the light to pierce through the windows And fall upon the cupboard In which secrets are kept She painted the ceiling in blues Challenging the white clouds above her head She wondered how long they would last Didn’t imagine that at thirty six She’d find herself lying on the floor Tracing patterns from those clouds Marvelling at the plans she made At fifteen She has come of age from her fifteen year old self On the threshold of decision Who she was then is still there Waiting To break free siobhan colman 1999 |
Archaeologist
I am the archaeologist of my mother’s life Bloodying my nails in the dig For the fragments of truth long buried Beneath layers of secrets The thick detritus of falsehoods And gentle fabrication My blood calls me there To the deep and airless dark To the broken bone and spirit of the woman I knew Yet did not I hear her whispering Through the fissures in stories told like records Stuck Like riddles caught in the throat of a senile old woman Seven seven seven seven Unto infinity siobhan colman 2009 |
Mtoto Potea (Lost Child)
I was born a child in a land belonging to others.
Privileged and pale and unaware of the wasted faces of deprivation.
Yet I loved those dark skinned people
who held my restless body
when my mother was busy running
the small estate.
One woman I loved more than sunlight.
Her warm, black-coffee skin was soft against my own
as she carried me in the garden to watch the monkeys
and pick flowers;
sweet scented
and glorious
in the tropical heat.
My Ayah.
My Esther.
I was three years old.
I did not realise I was not her child.
I did not see my paleness as a chasm to separate my life from hers.
I did not know that when my family left she would remain behind.
I did not know I was not of her people.
Not even when she held me
tight against her apron
and blessed me in Allah’s name;
buttoning my cardigan as my mother packed the car
with the last of our possessions.
I watched her beautiful body bent in grief;
her apron over head
until the dust on the road swallowed her whole.
It took me years
to realise I was white.
Less time to discover that privilege was a fragile thing.
And life; a lottery my own mother was destined to lose.
No grand house and tropical garden.
No servants to love and hold me when my mother shut herself down.
I discovered the reality of a life on an invalid pension,
the comfort gained from clothes handed down.
Blacktown.
Despite the distance fallen,
I realised
as I grew older,
that the chasm between myself and my Esther was closing.
I am over forty now.
A citizen of Australia.
And as I watch the news I realise that I am betrayed
by the colour of my skin;
the history of privilege it represents.
Like blotting paper it wipes away its stains.
And I realise I cannot call such a place home.
For there is no safety here.
No refuge.
And I think of Esther
and wonder if she has followed me here.
To a life beneath these blue cloudless skies.
And eternity behind razor wire.
Siobhan Colman 2007
.
I was born a child in a land belonging to others.
Privileged and pale and unaware of the wasted faces of deprivation.
Yet I loved those dark skinned people
who held my restless body
when my mother was busy running
the small estate.
One woman I loved more than sunlight.
Her warm, black-coffee skin was soft against my own
as she carried me in the garden to watch the monkeys
and pick flowers;
sweet scented
and glorious
in the tropical heat.
My Ayah.
My Esther.
I was three years old.
I did not realise I was not her child.
I did not see my paleness as a chasm to separate my life from hers.
I did not know that when my family left she would remain behind.
I did not know I was not of her people.
Not even when she held me
tight against her apron
and blessed me in Allah’s name;
buttoning my cardigan as my mother packed the car
with the last of our possessions.
I watched her beautiful body bent in grief;
her apron over head
until the dust on the road swallowed her whole.
It took me years
to realise I was white.
Less time to discover that privilege was a fragile thing.
And life; a lottery my own mother was destined to lose.
No grand house and tropical garden.
No servants to love and hold me when my mother shut herself down.
I discovered the reality of a life on an invalid pension,
the comfort gained from clothes handed down.
Blacktown.
Despite the distance fallen,
I realised
as I grew older,
that the chasm between myself and my Esther was closing.
I am over forty now.
A citizen of Australia.
And as I watch the news I realise that I am betrayed
by the colour of my skin;
the history of privilege it represents.
Like blotting paper it wipes away its stains.
And I realise I cannot call such a place home.
For there is no safety here.
No refuge.
And I think of Esther
and wonder if she has followed me here.
To a life beneath these blue cloudless skies.
And eternity behind razor wire.
Siobhan Colman 2007
.
Sharp Things
“It was only a pencil, Miss.”
Only a pencil.
They don’t allow me pencils in here. Not in here. Not in this room.
Poke, poke, scratch away. Peel off the layers. Reduce me to a fine point. Reduce me to….
Reduce
me.
“It was only a joke, Miss.”
Only a joke.
Only a sharp, pointy joke.
Sharp.
Sharpener
Sharpen … her
Sharpen
me
“Don’t poke her with the pencil, John!”
Sharpen your tongue!
You look sharp
You looked sharp
You looked.
“The pencil’s mightier than the sword!”
Both cut me open.
Sliced me down the middle …flayed me
Like a fish
“But it’s only a pencil.”
“That’s not the point!”
But it is the point.
The very point.
The very apex of my destruction.
Thin, poisonous point.
Sharper than a needle.
Do they allow pencils on planes?
Do they?
They don’t allow pencils in here.
Not in this stark, white room
Where sharp things are kept away
Things that point and stare and jab and poke holes.
Too many holes.
Too many holes
And I’m falling through them into
This place.
You promised me you wouldn’t leave me here.
You promised me
You promised me when you signed the paper.
You promised me, your finger a pencil on the bleached bone page
Pointing.
Pointing sharply at all that had been written.
My life in lines of graphite.
You promised you wouldn’t leave me
You promised you wouldn’t leave me
Here.
siobhan colman 2006
commissioned by Blacktown Council
Written in response to the artwork of Kenzee Patterson’s H 2005 H grade graphite pencil
