Queensland is Constructed From Slavery

Kanaka House

In viny shrouds, grey weatherboards
frame walls to shield a hidden story
Morning glory mantle streams
Dark mango trees press at the side.

On banksias and broken gate
peer empty eyes where plantation men
murdered outcasts, blacks by whites
In cold hatred hunted down.

Bush lemons march in ragged row
Fruits lie rotting on the ground
Collapsed beehives sting blady grass
By the door, two crosses lean.

Worn names traced in spider silk
scratched by some rough implement
Abiding solitary witnesses
To a century of bush sanctuary.

August 2012

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Jeff Sparrow examines some parallels and crossovers between the disgusting US Jim Crow and similar, even worse practices in Australia