Ancestry denial

the root of no tree

                                               all thieves.

I, among them                     scratch

the time lost debris            the family tree

and it leads me to County Kilkenny

(gee)

               where a certain decree

in 1367 AD

forced English settlers to

               ditch the Gaelic

               and return to English

language

               manners

                              ways of riding horses.

On Kulin land

                              my birth place

the colonial campaign

bolsters its relentlessness

                              washes it green

asks Aunty to speak for five minutes before

               we orate at length about

               the colonial heritage of the park

where the river

                              giver of all life

was rediverted

forced to subsume its network of billabongs

to make way for             this here

                                          multilevel call centre.
No doubt my blood has blood on its hands.
I cop out

                            focus on the Irish.
Even then      boredom

               the only response

to this Kilkenny discovery
Are settlers allowed that luxury?
In an age of personalisation

               we’ve made our own

the Great Australian Silence
turned our network of denials

into one great channel of violence.
I return to the Birrarung.
Who travelled further in life

                              than water?

from blood to sky and ocean

carried everywhere

               the damage we did anywhere?

Well

               as in life

               in death

               it will make kin of you

with fungi

               microbes

                              rotting you regardless

of creed

whatever you did in your time here
making compost of your bones

growing grasses by your grave.