young girl pretends she is witch she is healer

stalks round the yard out the front of her house

silver ghost gum combs itself through the air

small earth witch conjures spells in the dirt

summons grimoires from deep in the earth
libraries: everywhere you touch

all ideas come from the hearts of trees

muddy green rituals of root and leaf

unearthing old ways under the houso estate

whose concrete scabbed over lands fresh-bled

squatted-stolen-fenced into lego-land allotments

she peels back the sprawl of the colonising spread
a library, in everything you touch

with small hands gloved by ancient soil

she pries open portals to parallel worlds

where gods swim inside the clay

and frogs hold the balance in their throats

and mum’s not sick from the wounds of centuries
☽

in bed she reads stories on the pulped hearts of trees

cooks up enchantments in the cauldron of her mind

to dream the right spell to turn herself into a shield

against those fists her mum’s always catching

you are the scar of your mother’s old wounds
midnight, a haunted house:

she slips from bed,

sneaks from room,

creeps down hall

and rests at door,

checks mum’s still breathing

o

she picks her way up the tree quick like a spider

lays heart down on bough as she catches her breath

hovers in light trance as leaves flick the sun

cheek to bark she meditates, practising death
like a jarjum asleep in a coolamon cradle

the world is a song being sung to you

metronome precision of the highway next door

ghosts ride up and down over ancient trade routes

where news and ideas and technology once travelled

in the stories and dances and songs of her old people

and in their hands, on carved message sticks
don’t grow up to rule the world, little sis

or even other people

just you stay sovereign over yourself