Just to say. . .

Wagga’s black cat, “Satan”.

Hello, followers and readers, I have been busy doing editing and re-writes for my post; “Songs of the Murray Mallee”, as it is was serialised in a hard-copy community magazine.

The original post of “Songs of…” was a one long continuous epic poem in 4 Chapters, but I have decided to add certain prose pieces to the epic so as to create a mythological storyline alongside the poem. This was done to give dual depth to the piece..ie; to allow myself to write in poetry of the trials and tribulations of the early pioneers and their families from their first arriving and settling the country alongside the indigenous people here already, and to concentrate on the later threads of post The Great Depression influx of different ethnicities that came into Sth Australia during and after the 2nd WW.

I want to develope a mythological-historical storyline of the European settlers and their journey in establishing themselves and their families alongside, but not part of the indigenous peoples with whom they came into contact with…sort of parallel with the indigenous peoples here already for many thousands of years, but of our own ancestors journey, because it has to be accepted that such is the reality..like it or not..and the European settlers are not going anywhere soon..if at all.

So what I believe is needed, is instead of a continual mea-culpa cursing of what has happened, we : the European descendants of those pioneers acknowledge the hard work and suffering of OUR ancestors and give suitable credit to those people and lift ourselves above a state of continual conflict for what has gone before (while accepting that so much wrong and injustice has been done to the indigenous peoples) and hold a dignified respect for where we have come from and what we, as a community have achieved..and to meet face to face the indigenous peoples as equals and make a respectful peace with the past.

In doing this poetic epic, I want to create the feeling of a mythical journey that our ancestors travelled over mallee flats and down river with certain characters representing the place in history best reserved and in respect of the many characters who lived and developed communities in this country in those days.