Australia Day

Today marks your invasion. We came bound in chains.

You began your occupation. We were 14 years a slave.

You stole and you plunder. We tried only to survive.

You tore the land asunder. We barely stayed alive.

We are not second-class. Neither are we.

Condemned for our caste. And we for poverty.

You brought illness cross the seas. Shipped into exile.

Horror and disease. Cast away to die.

Then you were set free. On that fact you are right.

You got your land from me. Once we served our time.

You massacred my kind. For that I am ashamed.

Your blood mixed with mine. Making us the same.

We drifted apart. Our destinies entwined.

It’s a dagger in my heart. And one in mine.

Blood that we share. It is true we’re kin.

Living in despair. Our past shrouded in sin.

One day we will be friends. That, I’m sure is true.

I will shake your hand. And I will embrace you.

A victim I wont be.  Off my father’s time.

You’ll get no blame from me. For folly that’s not mine.

Forgiveness there wont be.  For the past and for the gun.

Travails not borne by me. For what other white men have done.

Our history is masked. In our blood that is mixed.

Without our checkered past. We would not exist.