Poems by Rosie Sitorus
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Sky
It’s a wide sky here We are known to it This sky of blood and blue From it we came, to it We’ll go and While we breathe, it Shields us Yields to us and Gives to us the Sky of white blood moon and Frees us from our bounds Tied by foes or Friends by other names And so it calls us night By night A howl of bright stars Trail a course for us to Trek and so we go To scale the peak or Slay the white knight Dragon never did us harm For we are known to it Sky of blood, our blood Our sky of true blue stars That looks at us through dark And light On this burned earth We live Wait to go back Wait for the moon to fade Wait for the knight to fade Sit atop the dragon Go back to the wide sky Breathe When rain comes Singing to me Oh, mother I breathe Plagues of clouds And soft invertebrates Coddle me Embosom me as you would Oh mother, I breathe When a foreign moon Speaks to me A woven language Beats and breaks me Braying, bleats and then berates me All for some forgotten slight then Oh mother, I breathe And mother, nature’s turning on me Chews and spits and churns upon the Only path of ma résistance Left to me Oh mother I breathe And a sighing shrieking Wind has Picked a fight with me And flings and flies its wrath On me Despite my free And flowing love My, oh mother, I breathe And a trickle to a storm Bears down A teardrop turns to stone And wears me down A fury so immovable It sits atop a tabletop a Teacup Holds a storm and Turns me up such as I have never been to make a turmoil, an isolated tumult such as None have ever seen Oh Mother I breathe When the misty sun has risen I Breathe When the ocean ravaged shore Is bare again I breathe The real is not imaginary Nor my empty mind a Quiet sanctuary See -- I know the lash of fury Of an order I scorned Oh, to rest my head upon your breast One last night Before this dawn I watch your breath Escaping to a Mirror world beyond Reflecting me Gestating me And so I watch you leave And oh Mother I breathe. |
Rosie Sitorus is an emerging writer, born of two migrant parents, based in Western Australia. She has an established creative practice in spoken word performance, music and comedy, and works as a linguist with rural, regional and remote Aboriginal communities. She uses poetry to fashion stylised interpretations of the Australia she experiences – a country grappling with change, prosperity and inequality; still navigating its way out of historical trauma. Much of Rosie’s writing reflects on her relationship with her late mother, a great influence on her love of language, as well as her search, as a ‘third culture kid’, for place and belonging in contemporary Australia. This is Rosie’s first time (ever!) being published.
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