This land
We stand
on ground our ancestors found,
Labelling
it theirs in their enthusiasm,
Forgetting
the land had always been there,
Unowned,
centuries before they were born.
They pointed
and took without asking.
The land
didn’t argue, simply contemplated.
Before men
came the land breathed easy,
Unworked,
untrodden, untoiled. Free.
It couldn’t
condemn man, acting by nature,
Want and
the need to own, make shelter.
Man renamed
the land and ploughed it out.
The original
name once known, now lost
Is only
spoken by the blue mountains,
Which gazed
on, pleased to be out of reach.
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, August 20, 2020
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