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  • Poems:Thunder raining poison
  • Ali Cobby Eckermann

Thunder raining poison was written in response to an art installation created by Kokatha glass artist Yhonnie Scarce, which marked the beginning of an important and overdue dialogue with the past. Her work was an artistic response to the impact of atomic bomb testing on our traditional lands at Maralinga in South Australia by the British government in the 1950s and 1960s.

Maralinga is traditional country, where stories were shared under a vast sky, through dance and pantomime. Chapters of story were sung in unison, recited over and over. The song-lines of these ancient stories crisscrossed the land, uniting Aboriginal people in a varied yet shared history of place.

If you looked closely at the installation you could see the energy of a moment halted in time. And if you listened with compassion you could hear the sorrows of our old people caught in the glass. In some places the furnace of the atomic bomb testing was so extreme that the red sand was turned to glass. In other places the bomb craters radiated heat for days. Our old people, in their innocence, slept in the craters for warmth at night; their bodies were found dead in the mornings.

Our hearts still mourn for our land. We will not forget the horror and the hurt. Our land has been poisoned, and it is our cultural duty to tell our truths through our art.

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In the early 1980s I lived along the Trans-Australian Railway line, at Ooldea, an important meeting place in Maralinga. I would sometimes travel through the sand dune country to the old soakage north of Ooldea, which was taken over by the Europeans to use for their trains when they built the line. It seemed strange that [End Page 136] Aboriginal people were absent from this place. Evidence of existence lay scattered, flints and stone tools, carvings of birds and animals were sun-bleached on the sand, a child's boomerang distorted and alone. There was much mystery residing here. And no-one to ask.

My son was conceived out there. And years later when I found my mother she told me she was born there. I had become alive in a history book, a chapter of Australia that remains both horrific and hidden - a chapter of history that affects my family profoundly.

My poetry has always been informed by healing - my ongoing need to heal from past pains, and later my wanting to share this process through literature for the benefit for others. The second and third poems are part of this process. [End Page 137]

Thunder raining poison

a whisper arrives. two thousand. two thousand or more. did you hear it?that bomb, the torture of red turning green, the anguish of munda (earth) turning to glass did you hear it? two thousand. two thousand or more yams burnt useless inside the groundpoison trapped in glass like a coffin, like a museum. did you hear it?two thousand. two thousand years or more. can't go away. you poisoned it good!two thousand. two thousand or moretears we cried for our Land, for the fear you gave us, for the sickness and the dying.two thousand years of memory here, two thousand or morepeaceful place this place, happy place till you come with your bombs.you stole our happiness with your toxic ways.you stole our stories. two thousand. two thousand or more.animals can't live here, there's so much dying.my heart can't live here, there's too much crying.two thousand, two thousand or more. our people gone missing. did you hear it?where's my tjamu? you seen him? where's my daughter? you seen her?mummy, you seen my mum? dad!two thousand. two thousand times or more. I ask for truth. Do you know where they are?silence sits here. two thousand. two thousand or more.trees dead with their arms to the sky. all the birds missing. no bird song here. just silence,like a funeral. two thousand. two thousand or more.a whisper arrives. did you hear it? two thousand. two thousand...

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