Canberra keeping place

Andrew Spiker (2017)

…fragments of a whole culture
signalling to us from a strip of magnetised
tape
audible
language of a dreamtime
Gunaikurnai song…
In the compactus of the institute
collection
such items sleep in their protective shells.
Sometimes, after nightfall, in the vault,
I imagined fleeting shapes just out of
sight.
Photographs don’t tell the whole story;
books can tell the story, but not the
sound.
Voices must be heard, how it was, how it
is now;
There needs to be a listening.
Then we can take the bone out of our
throats
and speak. Not make any more mistakes.
Care for the lake, care about the culture
– this is a path I hope to walk.

July 13, 2019
Poems