Red Ochre At Our Feet

Australia’s sands are tinted red,
The pigmentation rich—
The blood of natives stricken dead,
Their pain in fever pitch.

The ferric oxide contintent,
With ghosts that drowned in blood,
Their spectral presence permanent,
Their bones encased in mud.

The mounted soldiers sent in droves;
They raged with greater arms,
Their battle cry through Sydney’s coves,
“Protecting” settler’s farms.

The rudimentary weapons,
Held by Aborigines,
Were trumped in moments by their guns,
Red blood upon the trees.

Their innocence sore blighted,
And beset with new disease,
As crews from ships alighted—
Wind borne sickness in the breeze.

The colonisers smugly wry;
Apartheid as the law,
This culture we will now decry,
On this, our newfound shore.

“Terra Nullius”, they claimed,
There’s no-one here but us!
The meek indigenous were maimed,
Declared superfluous.

Their ghosts will greet you hastily,
Proclaiming their dismay,
If you should visit Aussie shores,
With murder writ in clay.

Pray have a heart for those that died,
By guns from the first fleet,
This history can’t be denied—
Red ochre at our feet.

ADL