Brooke Forbes

Reverse culture shock,

it may be, 

but how, I ask,

have we amassed so much wealth

in one pocket of the universe

and left others behind. 

We sip tea and discuss finely-mowed lawns

and the intricacies of shaping garden beds green

with coastal rain patterns.

We comment on the movement of neighbour’s careers

and the renting of housing

while on international sabbaticals. 

We walk pavements with sweeping coastal views

in fresh-branded joggers

and comment on the breed of designer dogs

running ahead of us. 

In this two-flame existence, what,

I think, continues for in the place I connected with more recently

and have left momentarily behind.

Town camps to town dwellings –

communities built around the recognition of survival

instead of our wilful ignorance and land theft. 

Faded hotel room signs casting shadows

into hotel pools for children to jump the fence

and swim in during warmer weather.  

Camp dogs finding shade under

abandoned car wrecks.

The creativity of festival upon festival:

Parrtjima, The Beanie Festival, Red Dirt Poetry Festival,

to name a few.

Expansive sunsets where the light hits the ranges

and bounces through the streets,

inspiring poetry that thrives

through community and is said aloud

at open mic nights.  

The proud speaking of languages

that our colonised English has tried to snuff out. 

These two places don’t coexist evenly –

sprawling coastal suburbia and

my new desert home.

There’s a dominance,

an amassing of ownership,

a silent theft in the night. 

But the amassing of wealth in one place

can never overturn the amassing of culture in another. 

The richness of connection to land and traditional owners,

and the need for cultural humility as we,

quite rightfully,

are required to pay the rent. 

How can we tip the scales,

stop the greed,

prevent the next wave of

race-based child abduction or incarceration? 

How can we balance the concept of home

on lands so obviously stolen? 

How can we hear stories

without attempting to own any part of them –

 besides the responsibility that is,

of building a better future? 

The answers are a tidal wave of colonial history,

signposted incorrectly through

what is deemed greatness and first-world progress. 

The answers aren’t here, either,

on the trip home,

talking to loved ones,

and staring into sodden tea leaves at the bottom of a Royal Doulton cup,

that remind me,

ever so slightly,

of the muddy banks of the Clay Pans.