Gully song 
Jazz Money

- Katoomba, 6/19 
a mist seeps
through            this gully 
              and I can hear
song
hear the way 
the old voices are  
held here 
hold here
the way they have
turned       to mist
that clings to 
the new shoots
the streaking old gums
to dawn to dew to breath
held
suspended on
spiders web
song and smoke and words
of air
/
there are birds                   pinned
to the sky
a great emu
to guide us home
a good fire will
trickle
across the land
like water
the old trees remember      whisper
of our people
who have been             here
since the first sunrise
of dance and feast
bodies tended with ground paints
fine oils sweet medicine
the time before
the smoke turned foul
before
tar rivers ran through the forest
/
in this place 
plastic plaques tell of
people moved
of homes made with
kerosene can walls
cold winters bad jobs no pay
the plaques tell of bravery and courage
of      hearts broken anew
of babies stolen
tears that washed
the gully away
/
the plaques say nothing of the songs 
held in the trees
in the mist
that haven’t forgotten      aren’t lost
still walk here
are still heard
/
here now
on a Saturday     June   2019
 I see gunyas
built this morning
by hands relearning             the old ways
trees releasing new homes
sighing                  in the clearing   
breathing old sweet smoke
and the gentle drip of the ferns
sounds like
resilience
the mist loudest under the trees
like bird song through rain
/
and            as I write this
orange face and orange breast
two                    king parrots 
land in the mist
perch on a small gunya
and pass a branch from 
beak to beak
 
 

Jazz Money is a queer poet, filmmaker and educator of Wiradjuri and European heritage. Her poetry has been published in various journals, including the 2019 Australian Poetry Anthology, Australian Poetry Journal, Rabbit, Meniscus and others. 

In 2018 she came first in the University of Canberra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Poetry Prize, and was shortlisted for the Nakata Brophy Prize. She has exhibited poetic works in contemporary art group shows and her video work has been shown at Artbank (Sydney and Melbourne).

Jazz is currently based in Sydney, where she works as a digital producer on unceded Gadigal land. She is grateful to live on the sovereign lands of the Gundungurra and Darug nations.

 © Lieu Journal 2019