For Aunty Kerry Reed-Gilbert, 24 October 1956 to 13 July 2019.
I think I might see you when I walk out this morning along the street we used to share. Winter is bleak in Kambera. Icy winds off the mountains, sleeting rains, low-hanging sun-fired fogs bring birds down into the hollow of the suburbs.
They come in droves. Rainbow lorikeets, corellas, king parrots, crimson rosellas, galahs, gang-gangs, and sulphur-crested kuracca – your totem.
It was not meant to be. I turn the corner and the wind hits me cold and sharp in the face like the reality. You are not here in this house with jasmine clad front fence, lilies by the door. A place of grandchildren and Aunties, where us mob gathered to write. Talk our Blak lives. Dream our rainbow visions.
Early on the morning of your passing a thick cloud of kuracca swept in flying low above your old house, calling loud, taking your spirit home. Releasing all that was unsung of you across the open sky.
