Quandongs (Brenda Saunders)
I remember days at La Pa
going out with the Aunties
to look for quandongs
growing on the hill
Selecting bright bush cherries
ready to drop
─ a bite too bitter still
for my sweet tooth
The women would laugh
as they sorted
patting hot-pink fruit laced
with wild honey
teaching us bush tucker way
Each ball rolled on the tongue
─ sent a sudden shock
to the back of my throat
A sweet sour hit
─ the after-taste
perfumed
with blossom
‘Quandongs’ was Winner of the 2018 Oodgeroo Noonuccal Prize and was first published in Overland.
Listen to Brenda Saunders Read ‘Quandongs’
mother(s) native tongue (Yvette Henry Holt)
we are thieves of sunlight
mother and i,
soaking in the seasonal crusts
of a south-east queensland winter.
layering shawls upon time
across the brim of our
cinnamon dusted yiman* shoulders.
hand in my hand
dutifully mother shuffles around
this garden playground,
her distant nursing home.
deeply rooted terracotta pots
forge amongst crayon coloured flowers
giving rise to an inquiring ladybug
mountaineering forbidden brown skin
exploring just below the unthreading hem line
of mother’s inherent sculptured legs.
my ears hunt for a serpent butterfly echoing in distress.
my eyes miscarry.
edging toward her beloved garden bed
the one nearest the aviary
before a manicured mattress of flora and fauna
we kneel in faith
mother and i,
but not in prayer.
marigolds, snap-dragons, begonias, daffodils
and blooming pansies lotion my lean desert fingers
gently sailing up and down the oars of their urban throats
i tickle in delight
mother looks on
half interested
half not.
mother begins to scribble with her tongue in a language
i do not understand.
listening with borrowed providence to the spillage of her words
excitement
bewilderment
anger
happiness
frustration
confusion
laughter
judgement
confabulation.
i am jealous.
what a recipe of speech?
you never offered me your language.
never.
not once.
only occasionally you loaned me your aboriginal-english lingo
a thorough concoction of bastardy words if ever there were,
along with conversations of the deceased
premonitions of the future
history of the Letters
mother you impress me
always in privacy,
always without witness.
now your mind reclines into an abyss of natal sustenance
piece by piece,
your glossary so fertile.
i want to speak my mother’s tongue!
that same crossword dialect for which you were forbidden to voice
post 1945 (Woorabinda Settlement).
softly whispering to my first teacher,
‘i know poetry
i know stars
i have also grown to
know the sting of bees.’
mother smiles
muling away the curtains from
her silken aboriginal-afghan eyes.
leaning her ear toward mine
mother sighs with grand certainty
…i gave you all my stories!
sunlight now shifts from one shoulder
to the other
casting shadows over these handwritten notes.
for the lifers of this home
morning tea is now served in the adjacent dining room,
the one without a garden view.
i pocket a chrysanthemum
breaking its defenceless stem
between my fingers
burying seeds
inside my jacket.
still no serpent butterfly in sight.
mother’s memory,
a silent womb
a sacred tomb
a place that will forever unbolt me.
mother continues to hold my hand.
*Yiman / Iman / Yeeman / Jiman / Eoman (Nations / Tribe) Taroom, lower Dawson River region of south-west eastern Queensland.
‘Mother(s) native tongue’ was Highly Commended in the 2018 Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize and was first published in Overland.
Brenda Saunders is a descendant and Elder from the Stolen Generations. Her mob are Wiradjuri from the Capertee Valley near Bathurst NSW, but she now lives in Sydney. She has published three collections of poetry and her work has appeared in major anthologies and journals, including Australian Poetry Journal, Overland, Southerly, and Best Australian Poems in 2013 and 2015 (Black Inc). She has received numerous prizes including the Mick Dark Varuna Environmental Writers’ Fellowship, the Banjo Patterson Poetry Prize, and was a finalist in the prestigious Aesthetica Prize (UK) and the International Vice-Chancellors Poetry Prize (University of Canberra). For many years Brenda was an activist for Aboriginal Heritage and Native Title reform. Her next book addresses new threats and challenges to Country and culture since Colonisation.
Yvette Henry Holt — national multi-award winning poet, academic and comedienne — heralds from the Yiman, Wakaman and Bidjara Nations’ of Queensland. Her poetry has been widely published and anthologised, both in print and online. In 2005 Yvette was awarded the Queensland Premier’s David Unaipon Award for her manuscript, anonymous premonition (UQP), a collection of poetry and stories seeded amongst memories and dreams celebrating childhood, social justice, feminism, motherhood, womanhood and love. anonymous premonition went on to win the Victorian Premier’s Literary for Indigenous Writing in 2008 and has since been translated into Chilean Mapuche, Chinese Mandarin and French. Yvette now lives and works in the Australian Central Deserts, promoting financial literacy and community education across 500,000,000 square kilometers. She is currently completing a manuscript of poetry and prose — uncovering what lies beneath the desert skin.