Oh ancient ancestral land
You are a place
Of bone memory
Of buchu in the blood
A place where strings
Connecting
Have been broken, again
And again
And yet
I hold my hands high with
Gratitude
For you remind us all
That we are more
Than the scars we bear
You are not the backdrop
You are the feature
You
Are the reason why,
Spry
As gracious spring
Shows the wild and
Precious treasure

Of her blooms
In the iridescent yellow
Underfoot
The flushes of red reaching
High
Indigo purple reaching
For my hand
You show us that
As with winter,
Night
Can never keep morning
At bay
The wellsprings of water
That abound
A current
Riding arteries and veins
Across the plains
They bring a clarity
Pure
And true as those waters
That to live
Only with an accounting of your losses
Is to die within
And to live
Without accounting for
The losses of others
Is to inflict death
Upon them
Again and again
Thank you ancient heart
Rich with ancestral hearths
For your winds that reveal
The truths we already hold
If we listen
For reminding us
That those same winds
Spend an eternity
Clutching sand grains
From impregnable stone
Making change
The only constant
I give humble thanks
And
Always
honour