The Gap

I’m coming back through the Gap
after a bush trip
tired but full up as usual

so much to learn
in that other world
where I should be a great-grandmother
families are big and wide
so much happens in a day
a new baby, a fight, a breakdown
but no-one gets lost
behind a desk for the day

I think about the creek where we had smoko
clean white sand, graceful curves of gums
the boys dug soaks
showed me and the teacher
how to to scoop out the muddy water
so clear water seeped in, lovely to drink

the girls dug up fat frogs
and pencil yams, skinny bush potatoes
the size of your finger
they piled them next to a little fire
covered them with ashes
soon we were eating them, warm and nutty

I remember a bloke from the Education Department
lamenting to me recently
that Aboriginal children out bush
often don’t know all the colours
or what a circle or triangle is
can’t read very well
are so far behind
white children of the same age

now as I drive through the Gap
I think how little white teenagers
could read of that creek bed out bush
and I lament that too