JOSEF LESSER
THE RAINBOW SERPENT (In many Australian Aboriginal legends the “Rainbow Serpent” is respected as the creator of all life, plants, rivers, rocks and hills. The Serpent is both creator and destroyer.)
I am the colour of your cool evening, of the warm wind winding between the knots and bends of your worn bones, the colour red of the sand between your toes of the red kangaroo of the sun before stories of dreamtime draping in red the soul of Uluru.
I am your mother your father your child from yesterday and your children to-morrow. I run beside you fleeting as the dingo, hunt for food with your boomerang, spear with sharp eye the murray cod fat mullet fish and barrumundi.
Listen for my voice in the roar of the falling water the laugh of the kookaburra the croak of the frog. Hear my spirit inside the didgeridoo where I blew through the hollow wood satiated termites who now roam blind as stars across your southern sky,
relay the stories from your elders to the young how the brolga changed into a bird to dance into the spirit of the land, how koala lost his tail and all around is dreaming. Possum dreaming caterpillar dreaming lizard and echidna, all the fish birds animals reptiles man woman and child,
for in the dreaming remember is the magic of life the magic of sticks burning fire, healing the unwell wrenching tears from the clouds and the chant of yilpinji, secret women’s business sacred and secret as the cry of creation from the bullroarer slicing the air in the valley of men. All this I give and all this I can destroy.
Uluru: Aboriginal sacred site where it all began Yilpinji: Womens secret love magic.
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