Published in Overland Issue 202 Autumn 2011 · Uncategorized Chorus of Crows K A Nelson When she saw Top Camp (humpies made of corrugated iron/slabs of bark people and dogs living together children discharge running from nostrils/ears like sewage seeping from the broken pipes next door) she didn’t wince. She learnt to overlook the rubbish caught on broken fences blown by westerlies that brought the dust and the haunting sound of crows through every crack. When she met Topsy (her husband used a star picket punished her tribal way even though everyone knew that whitefella contractor got the better of her) she didn’t faint. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen human flesh open to the bone or held the hand of a woman being stitched up. Outside the clinic the crows seemed to sing that white man long gone. When the Land Council mob said no to a drink in the back bar (the publican would only lace their beer with Worcestershire Sauce customers would stare/whisper behind cupped hands) she bought a carton. They sat in the yard yarning and laughing at the crows as they burnt their beaks scavenging for scraps on the barbecue hot plate. When she walked across the Harbour Bridge arm in arm with friends (black/white and brindle as her Nana used to say) mothers pushed babies in their strollers fathers shouldered children waving flags people carried placards and a breeze billowed out that ‘sorry’ word above the crowd for hours. Not a crow in sight! Well into the New Millennium it wasn’t the daily press releases of suicides/sniffing/stoushes or claims the ATSIC experiment had failed (miserably) but another order from a minister and a mandarin carried out by men in overalls that did her in. When they took the dotted/cross hatched worlds off all the office walls to hoard them in a secret storeroom somewhere (Mitchell/Fyshwick/Tuggeranong?) when each piece of art and artefact was placed (without bubble wrap or due regard) in Woolworths shopping trolleys that lurched along the corridors their wobbly wheels protesting to the last when workers sat transfixed to telephones and screens (like crows on a carcass pecking pecking unperturbed by passing cars) she hurried to the women’s toilet locked the door/flushed and wept. Later she stared at her blank wall where Rover’s Universe used to hang. Without him she felt so far removed from Top Camp Topsy and the mob from the fly speck she said she was in a far flung corner of his print near one of five gold dots (or sacred sites) and as she stared she thought she heard him say Gardiya* might like ’em might learn ’em might read ’em right way one day. But beyond the blank space/concrete wall/double glass it seemed to her the crows guffawed (as if they foresaw the NT Intervention). *gardiya (whitefella) K A Nelson K A Nelson is the winner of the 2010 Overland Judith Wright Poetry prize for New and Emerging Poets. A former public servant and adult educator, K A Nelson has worked with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and organisations across Australia for many years. She lives in Canberra with her daughter, writing part-time. More by K A Nelson › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 4 October 202418 October 2024 · Main Posts Announcing the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers 2024 longlist Editorial Team Sponsored by Trinity College at the University of Melbourne and supporters, the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers, established in 2014 and now in its ninth year, recognises the talent of young Indigenous writers across Australia. 16 August 202416 August 2024 · Poetry pork lullaby Panda Wong but an alive pig / roots in the soil /turning it over / with its snout / softening the ground / is this a hymn