Are you listening white Australia?
Learning to understand
It is not for us that you have a God
in your image as man with His power
to create a realm of worldly possessions
in your desire for the virtual paradise
for we cannot see your God in Heaven
nor in his churches who cannot agree
to whom his pleasure bestows glory.
For our creator is here with us in this place
where Moinie is the spirit of All-life
who connects us like a river’s flow
in a circuitry of ever-cycles with everything
and the timeless space where we live forever
within the memory of All-life Country
with our laws of the land never changing.
Yet your supernatural God is the unknown
we cannot touch feel see or hear
is a god who has not seen us in His law
and so we wonder…
why our gift of connection with All-life
is not accepted by you for the respect
and love we share in the natural paradise.
We offer tagari-lia that Moinie created
in connection with all natural bodies
for it is here that our gift is held for you
to heal the sins vindicated by your God
as we journey together with respect for All-life
and learn to understand the gifts from Moinie
in the ever-cycle of life and death.
While the spirits are silent and shy
There’s the sound of water down the gully
as ole mangana calls a hearty cry
with man-fern sat under a gum tree
while the spirits are silent and shy.
quiet in its space, the family murmurs.
with sounds of living things.
that feed from those they nurture.
In the circle it goes out an’ it brings
so I sit here as it comes into my being.
my family with its spirit of law.
and I feel an all strength returning
as the land sniffs at my spore
she is with me as I with her
an’ those ole spirits playin’ round the hills
over the noises of living spirit
an’ below the mist where the water spills
there’s the sound of water down the gully
an’ old mangana brings messages on high
an’ the man-ferns sit under a gum tree
while the spirits are silent and shy.
meenamatta lena narla puellakanny
Meenamatta Water Country Discussion
A Writing and Painting Collaboration
Jim Everett Puralia Meenamatta & Jonathan Kimberley
Ghost Nets and Waterlines
Our Earth Mother cries when the nets are set adrift
For they travel loosely and kill sea life as they go
Drifting in the moon-tides the grim reapers travel wide
Through tidal water homes of the all-life living free
To drift and pluck from the all-life every living thing
That shares the bloodlines of the all-life of our world
The nets drift on to kill like ghosts the fish can’t see
And plastic muck that people dump in seas so old
And the nets will drift and drift as if they really should
To spread and twist like floating shrouds to look for more
The birds and fish get tangled in monster knitted webs
Made of twisted ropes and twine to make a deathly claw
Like silent ghosts their tentacles drift wherever they will go
Until the sea is struggling against this ever shifting wall
For nets keep on coming like spidery ghosts of sin
And we see them killing off the most ancient life of all.
And so it is with ghost nets coming on our shores
Where island people use them to tell stories of the sea
With kelp and fibre string and flotsam jetsam as our stores
Telling stories of island life that talk respect for living free
Recycle and renew our strongest feelings of respect
For the sea and its life that sustains us from the brine
Our island life is a freedom with the sea that we protect
We leave our softest footprints in the golden sands of time
To be happy in connection of this wondrous living world
We walk the beaches to feel the sand crunch between our toes
Along we walk collecting shells and bull kelp come ashore
For telling stories and creating songs of islands that we know
And dance our stories in island festivals to celebrate it all
From islands north and islands south we tell you of our lore
As we watch the muttonbirds return to their island holes
And the turtles come in life cycles done many times before
We string the stories from our island ways
Telling stories of broken cycles that suffer as they die
From human offal as it drifts along always there to prey
We tell stories about deadly ghost nets always floating by
Yet still we sniff the sea smells tainted with odorous death
While we weave grass string stories and shells from the shore
The spiral webs from coloured nets tied in with bull kelp leaf
And woven in many colours telling stories of the lore
Weaving our sea patterns like coral families made of string
With nets and kelp and woven spirals making stories come alive
Into the spirals of coral and kelp we make these stories sing
And weave stories from the things we find whenever they arrive
Through stories and bloodlines with the all-life of the sea
Feeling the water and smelling the essence coming on the breeze
Our crystal sands and timeless spaces ever they will be
And waterlines join our islands across waves of memories
This poem was written as part of a visual arts collaboration, on the theme of ghost nets, between Palawa and Erubam Le (people of Erub Island, Zenadth Kes/Torres Strait Islands).
The 2016 exhibition was held in the courtyard of TMAG – Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery – in Nipaluna.
Listen to Uncle Jim reading ‘Ghost Nets and Waterlines’ while in interview on What Are You Looking At?
This podcast series was produced by Pip Stafford for Contemporary Art Tasmania. Episode 18, entitled walantanalinany palingina with Jim Everett Puralia Meenamatta, dropped in 2019.