Maipa village mother wails

           into the wind’s womb

                      goodbyes to her son

                                 who died too young.
Her Tasmanian daughter

                      looks away                 to

                                 sky   gum tree   wallabies

                                            sunlight

                                 sees Victorian cloud song

                                            diving, dipping

                                                       daring      butterfly

                                                                  camouflaged whirr.
Daughter’s comfort             	not mother’s concern right now.
Imploring         ancestors to meet him

           Mother shoos away the                 flies from settling

                      before she beats the white coffin with palm fronds.
Seeing traces             of feathers     headdresses reaching high

           hearing village drums         ta tum, ta tum, ta tum.
Not feeling                new-born granddaughter who tugs hard

                      at her dangling earrings

                                 for her attention           ta tum, ta tum, ta tum.
Bubu’s heart surges with tsunami of memory

           soccer games and lamington drives

           child actor in The King and I a cross-cultural romance

                                            tumbling into          regret?
Mother sings Desperado

           vinyl record memories unravel her until

           arriving at the Mersey Bluff lighthouse she has a vision of

                      a Bird of Paradise totem on a headstone for her lost son

                                 standing beside his grandfather

           crocodile hunter with two wives pausing at the portal

                      to all the villages and cities beyond this world

                                 who is dancing ta tum, ta tum, ta tum.
           Her tears are swallowed whole.

                      No longer numb         she teaches granddaughter and daughter

                                 stories of Mekeo Mermaids and takes them beyond

                                            where the mothers always cry

                                                                  ta tum, ta tum, ta tum.