Microsoft Word – Barangaroo and Benelong.docx
Barangaroo and Benelong
Barangaroo sings sad songs from North centre
Of the Grassy Grotto amphitheatre.
She fronts and laughs at the White Man’s Phallus, To emasculate Terra Nullius.
Benelong wakes from the mist to the East
And presides at a grand opera feast.
He sings of the Cross raised in 08
When World’s Youth saw in Christ Warrung’s worth And to God and Creation did relate,
As the Christ Cross spanned Heaven and Earth.
So, is the Way a bridge Heaven sent
Between the immanent and transcendent.
So, too does it complement yin and yang
And unite creation with heartfelt pang.
Andrew C Fraser 9/9/22
The Indigenous Prophet
First Nations’ people love divine Auntie
Who lives in the Land and they live in Her;
She who ministers as God of Mercy
And for their suffering applies Her myrrh.
Uncle Creator and Auntie Spirit
Are at either end of the Trinity
And the Prophet does in the middle sit,
Doing a deal under the Boab Tree.
They deliver Decoloniality,
For this diverse post-humanist planet,
That Big Bang reveals as incredibly,
Part of Body of Christ that some have met;
In whom risen, from death evolves all life
And creation moves to the tune of Fife.
Andrew Fraser 12/9/22
Michael Griffith: Home Page- Literature and Life Summer 2023 
Thank you Andrew, I love the way you interweave the indigenous world with Christianity and Chinese philosophy in this satiric meditation on white man’s place in this world…
Thank you for your second poem Andrew…. inspiration is clearly at work! Well done.
Again your sense of how Christianity is a core part of the indigenous is very interesting. I was wondering why you chose decoloniality rather than decolonization? There is an interesting difference. Thank you…
Andrew responded to my question on “decoloniality” and has given a wonderfully complex answer that reveals just how much thought goes into any word chosen by a poet. Worth a read:
The Indigenous Prophet
Again thank you for your positive feedback. I reflected on your question and it seems to me decoloniality is unfinished business while decolonialisation (in the literal sense) was largely complete when the old colonial empires achieved independence. To me the word decoloniality is decolonisation plus justice (which has a long way to go) and I am particularly interested in the justice aspect.
However, on a more technical level ‘decoloniality’ happens to rhyme with ‘tree’ in my poem and I am fascinated by the spiritual significance of the word in various religious traditions. For example, I see a connection between the Tree of Knowledge in Genesis and the Bodhi Tree in Buddhism. Most of all I see the spiritual significance of the Boab Tree for indigenous people. The tree is timeless like this ancient arid land and has deep roots which it uses to channel water and store it in its bulbous trunk, so crucial for the ‘life’ in the hot, dry ecosystem. And as I understand it, the word ‘life’ figures prominently among many religious or spiritual traditions going back to Genesis.