I
 
When I was growing up
Old men
Huffing and puffing
Taught that naught could come
By keys and notes, from women’s ken:
Music was made by men
 
Or so I was told.
 
When I was growing up
Painting was for bristled beaus
Sombre, obsessed:
No women could match
Their tension and power:
Art was made by men
 
Or so I was told
 
When I was growing up
Our first and ancient peoples 
Were ranked beyond the pale
Outcasts, unknowing
Denied and declining:
Truly defeated
 
Or so I was told.
 
 
II
 
Violence in the home was hidden tight
Girdled by that picket fence (white and ordinary):
Rape no crime in wedlock’s eyes
When incest trod the boards
And little boys were cruelly flaunted
 
When I was growing up
 
Power was the suite of men 
White men, ordinary men
Decent in themselves 
But the men[us]only choice
And oh, so dry, like day old toast
 
When I was growing up
 
Church and state
Soon settled into sleek abide
Clinging to the hate and fear
That forged the demon fates
Of hard and bitter times
 
When I was growing up
 
So many lives were shattered
So much beauty stunted
All the pain
Was wont to sour 
The songlines of this place
 
When I was growing up
 
 
III
 
Yet I have seen these shibboleths
One by one deranged.
I have seen the guarded step
Towards the mountains rise
Where sit the caste of human rights
Equality enshrined:
 
Sharp ageing brings its own rewards.
 
For though I still can half relive
The ripe old fear
That falsifies forgiveness 
I also harvest rich desire
Within each decades’ surge
As soil and hearth are intertwined
 
Reconciled across this ancient land
 
Come, let your lifetime sing
Let your learning grow
And trust in humankind.
Be warned
Be rapt, alive, in fulsome time
And love this mutable world.
 
 
July 2022