# A poem



## Jimmyness (Dec 31, 2005)

Ive been looking up Aboriginal spirituality and sacred sites for Religion and i came across this poem which i liked and thought id share. It's kind of sad  

Ah, White Man, have you any sacred sites
By Denis Kevans 

Ah, brother, 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, When you see the tracks
you've travelled down your fifty thousand years. 

I am searching round Australia, I am searching, night
and day, For a site, to you so sacred, that you won't give 
it away For a bit of coloured paper, say a Church you're 
knocking down, Or the Rocks, your nation's birhtplace, 
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 
swishing canes, Heard the shouts of angry people 
crushing flowers in our 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's
your sense of holy awe? When I see those little children,
torn apart, by fear of war? What is sacred to you, 
brother, what is sacred to your clan? Are your totems
rainbow-feathered? Is there dreaming in you, man? 

Sacred … sacred … sacred … gee, you chuck that 
word about, And when echoes answer sacred … sacred, 
louder still, you shout, And the echoes come, in 
patterns, and then, louder, every one, Till they meet, like
waves together, and go bang! just like a gun. 

Sacred … hesitating … now, a film is reeling through My
brain, and through my memory, of our sacred rendez-
vous, Of our meeting, of our parting, of my tears, 
as sweet as ice, Of my numb incomprehension of 
a shattered paradise. 

Sacred, O so sacred, was our sacred rendez-vous, And 
your ferocious anger, when you found, we weren't like 
you, But if I should make an act of faith, in a voice, both 
firm and clear, That there's something sacred to me, you 
start drowning in your beer. 

What is sacred to you, brother, what is sacred to your
heart? Is Australia just a quarry, for the bauxite belts to
start? Where the forests are forgotten, and the tinkling of 
the bell Of the bell-bird in the mountains is just 
something more to sell? 

Ah, brother, I am searching for the sites sacred to you, 
But the rivers, clear as crystal, smell like sewer-fulls of 
spew, From the pipe and pump polluters, and the nukes 
that fleck the foam, Would you let a man, with dirty boots,
go walking through your home? 

Sacred means that, sacred, that's a place where spirits
rise, With the rainbow wings of sunset, on the edge of
paradise, Sacred, that's my father, that's my daughter,
that's my son, Sacred … where the dreaming whispers
hope for everyone. 

In the silence of the grottoes of Australia's sunny land,
Stand together with the Kooris, stand together, hand in
hand, Open eyes to endless beauty, and to spirits, far
and near, For Australia is my country, hey, it's sacred to
me here. 

Ah, brother, 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, When you see the tracks
you've travelled down your fifty thousand years. 

Denis Kevans, 63 Valley Rd, Wentworth Falls NSW


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