Mirlinbarrwarr : Refuge On the Roper

MIRLINBARRWARR: REFUGE ON THE ROPER

Below Mataranka
seventy miles from the Gulf
in lands ridden to the bone
with spilt blood
by the years of the white rider
of the shareholder dreaming,
of the meat freezer dreaming
where human meanness lifts
its truth from beneath its masks
with dreams of wealth and power
whatever else the dastardry
from big-houses of Melbourne
ordered, its fields to fire,
with frontages to be added,
with appearances to meet,
with reputations to forge
to be seen as if they were
better men...

as if into the maelstrom
three down-south whitemen
came as Christ's missionaries
from another Melbourne, one
of heart and risk in longing
for those black yet verily made
like them in their Father's image
as if for those most put upon,
those most ravaged by their own,
those called savage to be hunted
like vermin by the veiled savages
among their very own

into the blood never-never
they came like quiet birds
to a song for the ever-ever
with three native missionaries
from Yarrabah by the lugger
'Francis Pitt' west into the
Gulf of Carpentaria and another,
and were well met by Gajiyuma
of the Mara, and guided up the
Roper river to Mirlinbarrwarr
in 1908 to work together
in the breach, the breach

needing bridging, the gulf
which the freezer riders
had ensured was emptied,
putting hands to plough
for the greater pastoral,
providing a haven where
the hunted and despised
of God's outcasts could
sit down alive of ear
and be heard of him.