(Untitled)

I am East Timorese
I am East Timorese
There is blood on the moon
there is blood on the trees
In the once peaceful gardens
the corpses pile high
blossom and branches
are tattered and torn
a bloody hair ribbon
drifts in the breeze.
I am East Timorese.
There are guns in my street,
there are guns at my gate
Where is my husband,
my mother my father?
Are they gone in those trucks,
herded by strangers
with guns in their hands?
Will I not ever see them again?
I am East Timorese.
My church is in ashes,
my priest is no more.
From the Bishop’s last refuge
flames reach to the sky.
Did the Bishop, too, die?
My home is on fire,
my children are crying,
we must run for our lives,
we have nowhere to go.
I am East Timorese.
In Jakarta the generals
are rubbing their hands
and political leaders
from soft leather chairs
talk, unctuous as ever
and as ever
deceive.
I am East Timorese

*******

Our poem is by Australian poet, Venie Holmgren, whom I had the privelege to hear read last year at Ruta Maya Coffehouse with poet Marceline Lasater.
Marceline's poems have been featured here, as well (go to the poem index to find), and she observes the following about Venie...

"This spring Papyrus Publishing published a book of (Venie's) poetry,
called Among the Sepias, in which she resurrected
'the spirit of her mother via the 'hard and long' domestic situations
which both restricted and gave meaning to her life.'

The back cover says: 'About the Author:
Born the ninth of ten children in a small country town
in Western Australia, Venie Holmgren now lives
in a small coastal village of Southern NSW.
She has been by turn, sometimes concurrently, dutiful daughter,
shop assistant, housewife and mother, unpaid political organiser
-- frequently for unpopular causes -- professional charlady,
bookshop proprietor, library aide and gipsy,
having spent almost three years wandering alone around Australia in a campervan.
This is her third poetry collection.'

Venie's parents were Jewish and apparently (from the poetry)
Jewish people were ostracized in Australian society.
They ranched and pretty much lived off the land;
trips to 'town' were relatively rare; life seems to have been hard,
much like stories about growing up on a West Texas ranch in the 1800s.

Venie has been a political activist for causes such as
saving the forests in Australia. The most memorable story I heard
was about sitting in front of the bull-dozers, maybe hand-cuffing herself to it,
to keep the bulldozers from knocking down the trees.
I'm pretty sure she went to jail for that.

But that's a story I heard (poet) Patricia Fiske telling..."

BACK to the Poetry Index