Dreaming of Europe

(spoken by Maggot, in book two of Holiday Coast Medusa)



I am dreaming of Europe in this country
where bark wraps the core of the melaluca in layers of pink flesh
where twigs drop from grey branches
onto my tin roof.
Europe of my mothers and fathers
grey slab of cold over there.

I am dreaming of Europe in this country
where the creeks are running
where rain is caught in the rough skin of mountains
lying-down mountains
the breasts of a woman lying down
where fish wake up from their sleep in the sand
under damp shadows of stones
where water was
where water has come again

in this season.

I am walking through the bush, the speargrass is ripening
strong and green, smelling of bodies in sex
and fish are waking up into earth-tasting water
and already the silver skin of drowned taods
lies like broken mirror amongst the pebbles
and stones have grown soft green beards, beaded with spawn.

I am dreaming of Europe
where my mothers, my fathers were made
where the stories were made: the fox, the lion
the wolf
where my skin comes from
where my skin is not a vicious disease
(the Canadian Jew at the tuna bar in Azabu laughed at me
ordering more green tea: "I've never met a Westerner
who hasn't been to the West.")

But in this place, this place where the true names have sunk deep
deep under the sand
names like Wulguru, Cutharinga
names stamped into the grass by men wearing skins like mine
wearing names from Europe
in this place where I have no birthright
no storyright
no right to be

in this place where I am

wallabies come through dusk, to touch their lips to the skin of water
sucking up earth-tasting water into rich channels of blood
the white bones of wallabies in their sheaths of muscle and nerve
grass-rustle trembling like phosphorus through the nerve-systems of wallabies
paws pressing into the mud
and a joey reaching from its pouch to press its paws into the mud
small stars, inside the constellation of the mother.
In this place where the star-maps in the heads of old men
and old women
have been scattered and trampled into the grass

where I have no right story

I will hold the mask of Medusa
I will bring her out from the books on my grandfather's shelves,
because in my dream the black men said: "This that you are making
is the shape of a story
to which you have no right."
Because I will not walk into the bora, even though weeds mask it
and the cattle hooves scar it.
Because I hear fragments of the names of this country
but I do not know what they mean.

I am dreaming of Europe, my terra nulius, my terra incognita
land of dreamers and thieves
land of poor, and hungry
where my mothers stole themselves from
where my fathers were stolen from
northern seeds
spilling fast over the secret continent
choking the waterholes, the boras.

I am not the wounder, but I am the daughter of a wound.
I am not a thief
I am the thief's daughter
who has nothing, who is landless
but who finds herself in this place.

I am not the fly, I am the fly's daughter
I am Maggot.
And even the fly's child
can be employed
in the healing of wounds.

© Rebecca Edwards.  All Rights Reserved.