Candy Royalle - Margaret Mayhew
Candy Royalle
Pregnant (for feature film slam)
mother they will not make me forget
they cannot silence this tongue
these stories
from your womb to my womb
your fears and your strength
I carry your cells
in my particles
your atoms
in my blood
I am made of you
your displacement
men gather
stripping people
of the earth beneath their feet
not caring dirt is sacred
dirt beneath nails
magic from which
olive trees flours
produce fruit
produce oil
thick and golden
like light
pouring across
invaders as they
push back the line
men and their ability
to make the innocent guilty
as though we perpetuate
our own genocide
mother
they push back the line
with bulldozers rifles
missiles white phosphorus
massacres and mass graves
imprisoning the young
so they will never grow
into warriors
stones from their hands
transferred to stones in their shoes
so they sink quick
in the sorrows
of those who mourn them
mother they will not make me forget
they cannot silence this tongue
these stories
from your womb to my mouth
like here in this nation
birthed by genocide
stripping people
of the red earth beneath their feet
not caring that red earth
is sacred
magic from which
dreaming flourished
producing songlines
like music pouring
into ears deaf to it
only hearing their own
righteousness
but i’m not deaf
I am trying to learn
the language of dreamtime
so I can teach you mother
these are stories of survival
buried deep
in this red earth
she speaks in fervent whispers
I am listening
mother they will not make me forget
they cannot silence this tongue
these stores
from your womb to my mouth
about how we were poets
long before they knew
the glory of poetry
how we were sculptors
philosophers
long before they
branded us terrorists and savages
backwards and undemocratic
they cannot understand
sometimes the hijab is a choice
as woman empowered
outside the male gaze
because they will not
read her by her curves
but by the fierceness
of her words
these stories
are our lifeblood
we are impregnated with history
and the resilience
of our women warriors
instruments o strength
against the devastating
actions of men
who have never cared
for consequence
but they will not make forget
they cannot silence this tongue
these stories
from your womb to my mouth
we know the strength
in sharing truth
lips to ears
hearts to souls
this is how we rise up
gather strength
become a force to be reckoned with
refuse to submit
to assimilate
their continued colonisation
will not abate
so we must
destroy those who would
dictate the ways we should live
the dirt from beneath our fingernails
shows we are no strangers
to hard work –
dismantling the system
bolt by bolt
crushing white supremacy
fist to fist
the only language
the white tongue understands is
violence
violence must be met with
violence
we shall not remain silent
we are stomping untruths
into that white abyss
let them hear truth echoed back
as we bleed these stories
etched into our existence
we are going to show them
mother
no matter how hard they try
to silence us
they will never fully understand
the power inside
our resilience that ensures
we will always survive
Published in a Trillion Tiny Awakenings, UWA Publishing, Crawley, 2018 (pp149-154)
margaret mayhew chose to foreground this poem by Candy Royalle.
Candy Royalle was a Palestinian-Australia poet, performer and storyteller who lived from 1981-2018. Her work bore witness to dispossession of Palestine and Aboriginal Australia, and explored queerness, desire, human rights and the power of love to bring about change.
Dr Margaret Mayhew chose to foreground Candy Royalle's poem above.
Dr Margaret Mayhew
Margaret Mayhew: Al Huriya (acrylic yarn) I chose this poem [Pregnant by Candy Royalle] because it reminds me of sumud; the quality of steadfastness that is needed to maintain hope amidst despair. The horrors of the israelI attacks on gaza, the horrors of the invasion of Palestine, chafe against the forces of hope and love that I see on the streets when tens of thousands of people gather in protest. I have spent countless hours to create an object on unceded WurundjerI land to gather words and hope together. By crocheting the text of ‘Al Huriya’ or freedom in arabic script into a Palestinian flag, it reminds people of the strength and beauty of feminised craft and maternal care.
Dr. Margaret Mayhew is a queer disabled artist, teacher and researcher. They are descended from boat people from Ireland, England and China and currently live on unceded Wurundjeri land. They have volunteered in creative collaborations with refugee communities in Sydney and Melbourne since 1991. They are a founding member of Melbourne Artists for Asylum Seekers and have exhibited art, and published collaborative writing with Asylum seekers in detention and in the community since 2013.
The text ‘Al Huriya’ or freedom in Arabic script is crocheted into a crocheted Palestinian flag
