I don't often write performance poetry: it is different to songs: harder in some ways. This is my first. The birds are in Nymboida National park: you can hear bellbirds and parrots, the yellow tailed black cockatoo and I think even a pair of wedge-tailed eagles. Recorded on the Zoom 6 with the double mics.
Some call me stubbornbut I just know my own mindI don’t have the same startOr or the same finish lineAs my bothers and sisterstheir rhythm be different to mineMy timeis slower than some andfaster than othersthough our flame is made of the same stuffI’ve had enough of this comparative competitive repetitive fisticuffs
I celebrate you andI commiserate your lossesI’ll wave my hands in the air when you beat your Big Bosses andI refuse to useJealousy or bitterness cozThe difference between us has seen usdivided when it can redeem us leave usconnected with prideour stride is widertogether
I cannot pretend that I am any betterthan anyone else upon this earthmy worthis determinedby the evidencethat I be.You be. We be.
I be stubbornCoz I know my own mindYou can’t tell me what to do where to go or how to findthat which I seek the words I speakmay be borrowed or re-used I hope not abusedI don't own the air which I set to vibrateBut I do careAbout the ripples that I make
And so, I am learning to listenFor when my expression transmissionbecomes a transgressionupon the weary hearts of others whose mothers, or mother's mothers, or mother's mother's mothersbore the brunt of some kind of warFeel the weight that holds them underWhile my fateof birth, colour and cultureallows me to floaton a pretty boatnot unlike The Endeavor
Unless I put my ear to the surfaceI wont hear the silence of longtime injusticeI won't know I have power and privilegeI could lend to mend, I could share to care, could donateto help heal this messof inheritance that my sleepy ignorance I perpetuatesFor in my stubbornness I seek peaceand in my peacemaking I make enemies
And they call me stubborn to make me smallbut they just don't get the concept responsibility of connected autonomy
See they call me stubbornButI call it
Free.
And in paraphrased epiphany quoting Professor Toni Morrison,If you are freeyour only job is to help someone else find their freedomGo.
