the sound from here
by Nadia Rhook
over there
colonisation sounds like business
I can hear money tinkling
Got change? Yeah, nufor a latte anyways
from the universe-ity it’s
empires, eroding my ears, by overlapping waves
Si, me encanta este ciudad
But y’now she’s got issues like the rest of them
but from here
colonisation is quiet
squatting on my front porch
the Dandenongs are mountain ranging
children dart up this path on bikes
I hear them scoot away
the trickle of water on a spongy garden bed
in an arrangement, signed & unspoken, we
rent this place and water the roses when we remember
from this porch settler colonialism sounds easy
like suburbia
the question, not how can that be? but
how long til it sounds different
Nadia Rhook lectures and researches history at Latrobe University, on the Wurundjeri land of the Kulin nations. Her PhD explored the aural dimensions of migration and colonialism in Melbourne. She’s concerned with the decolonisation of language(s), and is co-curating a heritage exhibition, ‘Moving Tongues: language and difference in 1890s Melbourne’, to show in October 2016.
