Did they think of me?

Draft thoughts, written just after recieving my citizenship in 2013

I am the product of colonialism

A child of the empire

I am the now that before made happen

A mother of milk and honey

A father of copper and guilt money

An other in all places that have been mapped in.

When the merchants set sail

On the first boats east,

Riding the beast,

Of the East

India Company

Did they think of me?

When Lord Palmerston in China,

Backed piracy

For the development of trade

Did he think of me?

And many men built fences

Turning down the light on a Dream Time

Of children in a hot southern sun

Mothers left without defences

Queen Victoria claimed victory

Proclaimed Empress

Over those before

Me.

Did she think of me?

With my slanted eyes and antipodean accent

Holding my certificate of citizenship

In all its glory and administrative mistake

A country absent and a capital re-drawn

With my feminine voice crying discontent

Malcontent

What is the content?

Of this governance

Of this century

Of this decade

Of this day,

Today,

My day.

With my small feet dancing on the pavement

In the elusive sun, before the showers

To the sound of the buskers

Surrounded by flowers

Peonies, red, hot like fire

In a market as old as the empire

Did they think of me?

Did they imagine me?

When they road the waves, the lands

Bullets in one hand

Picking up with wealth with the other

Did they think of me?