I cannot tell if the festivities are
Too deep within me
Or too far outside me to experience.
Even though I am unable to experience them,
I feel their presence.

I feel the festivities of my land,
Celebrating two centuries of
Growth, development, and ravishing;
Two centuries of rape,
Murder and profiteering;
Two whole centuries of defiling,
Mastery and decay.

But a young people, who would call
Themselves a people, celebrate.
I am of those people,
But not those people.
They are my people,
But I am not theirs.

Two centuries of mindlessness,
Two centuries of invasion,
Two centuries of mateship,
Two centuries of sweat, pain, grief, blood;
Two centuries to destroy
These millennia of heritage.

And I am not there.

My mind wanders the plains of
The outback, wades the creeks of the ranges;
My heart rambles through the
Sands and the bush and the scrub.
I commune with the forces to which
I am foreign.

I remain foreign.

As a foreigner at home, I cannot celebrate
These two long moments;
Long in time of man, but only
Moments in time of the land.
My heart and mind and soul
Are at home,
They are aware of festivities
But cannot partake in them.

Have these two long moments been
A loss or a gain?
Irrefutable as they may be,
Two centuries have brought about
A pride, unsurpassed.

A pride, surpassing memories of
The crimes of yesterday,
A pride, encompassing the
Crimes of yesterday.
I share that pride,
And am proud of the country I call home.

What crimes can there be as history follows
The meandering course of time?
The crimes of nations, the crimes
Of corruption, the crimes of redemption,
The crimes of survival.

But who survives?

One people invades and plunders;
Another continues.
One people grows and expands;
Another continues.
One people becomes great;
Another continues.
One people catabolizes;
Another continues.
One people laughs and corrupts;
Another would have continued.
One people usurps another,
And another is no more.
One people outgrows and destroys itself;
Another will continue.

Was a heritage lost or a nation gained?
It was not our heritage
And we did not lose it.
It was not their nation,
And they did not gain it.

And I am not there.

Was a people lost and a heritage gained?
They were not our people,
And we did not lose them.
It was not our heritage
And we did not gain it.

And I am not there.

Was a land lost and a people gained?
It was not our land
And we did not gain it.
They were not our people
And we did not gain them.

And I am not there.

Not being there I see more clearly now,
The course of nations,
The course of peoples,
The course of colors,
The course of races.

I have seen peoples more blind than
Ours, more victimized than theirs;
More corrupt than ours,
And more lost than theirs.
I have seen worse crimes,
And lesser punishments.
I have seen courses of nations,
And the course of our own.

Our own differs only in time and place
From those of the past,
From the courses of any blind society,
Or any lost people.
Our own crimes differ only in time and place
From crimes of the past,
And from crimes of the future:
All still are crimes.

As long as there are crimes
There will be more crimes.

As long as there are peoples,
There will be crimes.

Two centuries to celebrate.

And I am not there,

Though my heart remains in the only
Land I know how to call home.
My heart shares the pride of a land,
But the shame of a people,
The pride of a nation,
And the shame of a race.

Do I know I have the shame of a race?
It may not be my own shame but
I cannot be freed from it.
They are not my crimes, but I
Cannot be excused from them.

Though I empathize with our victims,
I wonder who the victims are.
Is it he who wanders, in
Spiritual harmony with his land,
In fullness of life and of existence?
He has lost a world, but not a spirit.

Or are we victims of our own hedonism,
Victims of our own indulgence?
Are we spiraling downward, ever
Downward, frenzied with material desires?
We have gained a world, but lost a spirit.

We may take away a land and destroy
A race,
But we cannot take away a spirit,
Or destroy a people.

Only a people can destroy themselves.

Let’s celebrate.