ELLEN THE TALL ONE

A ghost of my former coastal self-

Colour washed away by a midnight onyx spell.

 Pigments of melanin sunken on the Pacific floor,

Illuminating ivory glow of Irish ancestors ‘hundred years prior.

 

They sailed, they settled,

Buried skeletons, bore surnames.

Redirected unwritten legacy,

Uprooted our genealogy.

 

Boughs stretched, boughs extended,

Roots grew, roots emigrated

Unwittingly to immeasurable oasis,

Wrongfully occupying decreed Terra Nullius.

.

An alabaster character reflects direct in the mirror:

Native elsewhere; foreign to Australia.

For I am one of many million,

Lucky to have been raised in that lush, distinct ecosystem.

 And I can tell you there ain’t a price to possibly depict nor define the tone,

Of the sacredness, the uniqueness of sun, of waves, of home.