I am

• Zara Michael, Grade 8
• Poetry
• 2005

I am:

I am a child of the Dreamtime People,
I belong to this land like the gnarled gum tree
I am the river swiftly singing,
painting our songs on our way to sea.
My spirit the Gondwana
mirages, that shrink on the endless plains
through strapping storms, the wind, and plummeting rain.
I’m part of the rocks and the red desert earth
red as the blood that flows in my veins.
I am a kookaburra, eagle, and frilled neck lizard at mind
drifting through the rainforest that clings to the mountain side.
I awakened here when the earth was new,
there was emu, wombat, and hopping kangaroos
A time where there was no other man of a different hue
I am this land, and this land is me,
I am Australian young and free.