Melo amphora 
Melon vase 
A pipe dream of sweet water 
On dry, colonised land 
 
Worldly thin things 
Dream of rockpools 
Of strong sea Country 
 
They balance nervously with bent precarity these spindly creatures  
           Of trash these things of (not) ocean 
Like the colony they are desperate to situate 
They situate themselves 
As little of their selves on place as possible. 
           Desperate to avoid any connection to Country 
 
There’s a song 
Of water and of not 
Of crabs and creatures 
Seas and ships 
Wax sealed orders 
Coloniser kings 
 
There’s another song 
Sea creatures and mother Ocean 
Speaking to us. 
 
The precarious nothing non things stand on bent uncritical metallic legs 
Stared upon by memory, eternity, family. 
Who retake colonised trash colony 
With wildflowers on melon shell vases 
Framed like windows to culture 
 
The bailers recolonise the metallic electronic landscapes 
The bailers recognise the metallic electronic landscapes 
The radios and inter-generational mono-stereo 
Present their hydrographic hydrophonic stories 
And what moorditj story tellers these 
Come out of their shells 
Painting their stories upon themselves 
 
The bailers are recognised, and recognise 
The family surrounding them, carrying flowers 
Living up to their ancient names … 
Melo amphora. 
The sweet vase 
They carry ancestral memories 
 
Othered 
Worldly 
Otherworldly 

They belong 
They don’t belong 
 
And dreaming of water 
Dreaming of water 
Dreaming 
A little dream 
 
And the rock pool creatures dream, 'let’s not be too littoral'.