Sheena Blackhall Poems

It rests beside my heart. I keep it warm
Your baby-hair. I rub it like a charm
To plug the dam of tears from spilling down
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Huge juggernauts of oil ships
Cast garish lights over a black sea

The map of my city has changed
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There is a glen inside me
A stag stands within my skull
A curlew echoes in my inner ear
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Today at the opening of parliament,
To celebrate Queen Victoria's love of India
The current queen will be dressed as an Indian temple dancer
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Australia gave us kangaroos, cochlear implants
Koalas, boomerangs, the Barrier Reef
And Les Murray, whose mother miscarried
And died when he was twelve
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Nobody cheered, blew kisses, threw bouquets
There was no feasting, no celebratory sighs
No church rang with blessings, no prayers rose
To heaven, like chiming, footloose butterflies
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Who wrote your song?
I, said the blackbird
Why do you sing?
I must, said the blackbird
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Like grey fur boulders rabbits huddle down,
Ears pressed back like sleeves,
Raiding the grassy larder of the fields.
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Stirlin Castle lay in Inglis hauns
Beseiged bi Scots, a biggin strang an stoot
Edward, the Bruce’s brither, ringed it roon
Ettled tae sterve the furreign sodjers oot.
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1.Africa Africa

Fower doors ben, new neebors.
Immigrants. Black Africans.
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