photo: Rak Razam / shazaman@netspace.net.au
by Denis Kevans
63 Valley Rd, Wentworth Falls
NSW 2782
Ah, white man, I am searching for the sites, sacred to you,
Where you walk, in silent worship, and you whisper poems too,
Where you tread, like me, in wonder, and your eyes are filled with tears,
And you see the tracks you’ve travelled down your fifty thousand years.
I am searching around Australia, I am searching, night and day,
For a site, to you so sacred that you wont give it away
For a bit of coloured paper, say a Church you’re knocking down,
Or the Rocks, your countries birthplace, by the Bridge, in Sydney town.
Your cathedrals I have entered, I have seen the empty aisles
Where a few knelt down in sorrow, where were all the children’s smiles?
Big cathedrals, full of beauty, opal glass, and gleaming gold,
And an old man, in an overcoat, who had crept in from the cold.
Your schools, I drifted through them, heard the sound of swiching canes,
Heard the yell of angry teachers crushing flowers in their brains,
Heard the bark up on the rostrum where the powers had their say,
Wouldn’t children’s hearts be sacred, though they’re made, like mine, of clay?
Where’s your wonder? Where’s your worship? Where’es your sense of holy awe?
When I se those little children torn apart by fear of war,
What is sacred to you, white man, what is sacred to your clan?
Are your totems rainbow feathered?
Is there dreaming in you, man?
