‘If Not Now, Then When?’ * – Australia poem
I have fallen in love with the ‘opal sunsets’,
The contorted limbs of arthritic trees,
The piercing sun like the sting of bees,
Uluru, its majesty cloaked
In monumental rain.
Malachite waves with marble veins,
The Salmon-coloured, salt-white and golden sand
That frames this hoary fortress-like land.
Should I now call Australia home?
If not now, then when?
The indigo of distant mountains
Covered in eucalyptus trees;
Volcanic plains with upstart cones
Like pimples on a teenage face;
Hills in camouflage with thorny thickets,
Granite boulders in huddled humps,
Even the red dust and laterite soil
Bare, dry, parched and needing toil,
Is like that which coloured my sunburnt feet. They mirror the places I first knew
and learnt to call home.
Whispering Neem with saw tooth leaves,
Mango with silken, russet shoots
And starbursts of clove-shaped flowers
That later burst into clusters of fruit;
Banyan wild that I climbed as a child,
Memories like these
Of another place, another clime,
Are stored away, precious
Mementos of a long-past time.
Do I not qualify then?
To call Australia home?
Australia poem
Coloured people sense a kindred soul,
Not quite at home, not quite whole,
Still seeking, searching, for a role.
Will this change?
My life should I re-arrange?
If not now, then when
Will I feel happy
To call Australia home?
The mailman talks to me of Cricket
Though he cannot say my name.
I confess the footy doesn’t grab me
And he tells me that’s a shame.
A young mum sees me at the beach,
My sari a spinnaker billowing in the wind.
With baby on hip and toddler in tow,
She hurries across the powdery sand
Reaches out to me with both hands,
Saying ‘Welcome to our country’.
That smile, that gesture, that generosity!
I know that all is not as placid as it seems,
There are undercurrents, rips and tensions
To be weathered, tearing at the seams.
But I also realize that perfection is Ephemeral, transient,
Like nightmares and dreams.
Something whispers to me,
‘Life is for now. Memories are for eternity’.
Yes, the time for me has come
To call Australia home.
* Thank you to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for the phrase
Australi poem
