(Matthew 18:11-20)
It’s time, today,
Now, not another
Day, week,
Month or year.
This moment is
The only time we have
To make the change,
Shift the load,
Lay the burden down,
The colonial memory
Empowering privilege for
Those who won, took,
Dispossessed and genocide-ed
Those who were
Sovereign custodians
Kin of all nurtured,
Cultivated and grazed,
On the place(s) they
Called home.
It is time to
Loose the bonds
Binding us together
In this toxic quagmire
Of untruths hidden
In the myths of becoming
We repeat mantra like
To ourselves and any one
Who cares to listen.
It is time to
Untie the shackles
Of the original sin,
The stealing of
Another’s place,
The world’s best practice
Of annihilation and genocide,
Refined in coloniality and
Modernity, inflicted on
Innocence, plague-like
Emasculation of cultures
Millenia old,
Peoples contemporary
To their age,
Disappeared in
The burning brush fire of
Whiteness.
It is time to
Face the elephant
Stolidly present in
The pages of our history,
Prostrating ourselves
Before the Creator Spirit
Whose land and people
We have destituted,
Repenting the actions
Of others whose
Shoulders we ride
The gravy train of privilege
At the expense of
Those who have lost
Everything –
Sovereignty, rights, lives
Children and dignity.
In repentance
We loose the bonds and
Reconcile.
Not to do so
Tautens the thorns
Binding our estrangement.
It’s time.