kuu kuu kardiya

kuu kuu kardiya and the women who live on the ground*

                                                                   [Lee Cataldi]

1

australian museum october 1982

behind the microphone

pale face and hair

I was almost sure          sitting

in the same row of desks for ten years

one doesn’t forget

the toss of the head

femocrat

black and gold dress          gold

handbag fat

as a bank account

meanwhile

in the draughty hall

the Warlpiri women wait

their painted breasts

delicate as earth

and into

the mismanaged white festival

miraculous and powerful

quavering

fine harmonies          the certain

feathery presences

the artists stop

discuss a point of style          the song

continues          it is

a continuum sometimes

they sing it aloud

the women move lightly          brown

skin black skirts in a ring

like a windbreak

          at dawn blue

smoke from cooking fires          bodies

stirring in blankets a warm

outcrop of earth

2

the white woman

comes out of the house          she says

          wash the clothes

          finish the job          wipe

          the children’s noses          we are

          taking these children away

          it’s for their own good

the women who live on the ground

disappear into the desert

stepping lightly

out of their regulation mission bloomers

their ragged jumble sale clothing

their voices fade as water

sinks back underground

jukurra jukurra they say

taking their children with them

into the heart of that furnace

where spirits rise whiter than clay

3

the women are in the school

with the children who

are learning to read

yirdi they say

wirlinyirnalu yanu marluku

we hunted for kangaroo

nganimpa karnalu walyangka nyina

we live on the ground

the white woman

riding her mop like a broomstick

screams about the building

          what a waste of time          they should be

          learning to spell must and ought

          they are filthy          look

          at their noses          look

          at the dust on the floor

          at the dust on the ground

outside the school the children

write warlpiri in the dust          write

kuukuu kardiya in the dust the hot wind

blows into eyes throats noses

into all the clean clothes

the women who live on the ground

watch the white women fade

after a few years

back into their motorcars

after one or two of those seasons in which

the spirits of the secret places

open their giant lungs

and burn the houses to ash

*The Women Who Live on the Ground: poems 1978–1988 (Ringwood, Vic: Penguin, 1990).