Written piece
This is the piece I lay down
Michelle Brown
Australia
About this piece
This piece starts with lines that are in dialogue with Selina Tusitala Marsh's poems, laying down the lines that link me to my place in the Commonwealth. In expanding 'circles' I examine: personal history, family history and the wider cultural history of this land I love.
This is the piece I lay down
Heart lines
Land hymns
Blood lines
Bard lines
My story threads gather up red to show
he who filled the gap in my soul;
leaping to catch the rainbow,
because love could not make him whole
Heart threads frayed and torn, looking for relief
country deep in soul, hands plunging in soil
healing comes from clay loam belief
sewing umbers, Kelly greens limned with gold foil.
This is my piece I sew, threading the orange and green
with St George red, looking for bloodlines
to shine light on places lost and never seen
díláithreoir, lost, found and stolen, looking for signs
of where I belong, convict or Irish refugee
threading new words like duchas, Annam Cara,
to illuminate unseen feelings that draw me
to love this country with its sun drenched patina
with those whose black, yellow and red
threads were here first,
the bardic line who sings through me sheds
fear to sing the stories that once I cursed.
This is the piece I lay down,
Lover
Widow
Poet
on country that I love.
Glossary:
Díláithreoir – displacer
Duchas -multi-layered word that allows me to show my connection to land, that feels deep and abiding that fits my own diaspora Irish heritage
Annam Cara- soul friend. My connection to my part of this country sings to my soul. But also references my husband too