Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 Uncategorized Origin story Siobhan Hodge I come from string, stringmakers and mining pots, clusters on coasts, boot in the backside of sodden sheep, clipped coats and pared hooves. I come from oil and grindings, sheen of pared gears and rank stink of tyres melting on foreign soil. I come from wind. Riding on drifts that swell over skies that want no part of their trauma, fallen things, falling things. I come from little birds on garden walls, small archways cut so that children could climb from one garden to another, calling auntie wherever a woman is found. I come from chipped mugs and fractured teeth, trampoline perils on the edge of the park at night. I come from slick pavements, dark with ice and the spotted tracks of cars struggling the ancient bends in Christmas snow. I come from the moors, lands long cropped now smeared with sheep and stuck on postcards I queue to buy with fuel. I come from cement grey beach, then yellow of builder’s sand, now white that glows to warn off sailors creeping in at night. I come from words that aren’t my own, wearing badges that claim names, snip birthmarks, swap broken backs. I come from peace, to be always going, tied to the ribs of a black mare that will never arrive where she should. Image: Dương Trần Quốc on Unsplash Read the rest of Overland 235 If you enjoyed this poem, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four brilliant issues for a year Siobhan Hodge Siobhan Hodge has a PhD in English. She won the 2017 Kalang Eco-Poetry Award and 2015 Patricia Hackett Award. Her poetry and critical work has been published and translated widely. Her new chapbook, Justice for Romeo, is available through Cordite Books. More by Siobhan Hodge 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 First published in Overland Issue 228 7 February 2023 Aboriginal Australia Victoria police back down, is this a case for defunding? Crystal McKinnon and Meriki Onus After three arduous years, Victoria Police have today withdrawn their charges against two organisers of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protest. Whilst we welcome their decision, we note that their mediocrity gave them no other option. Emboldened by their state-sanctioned impunity, Victoria Police’s ineptitude hit a dead end. Pigs cannot fly. First published in Overland Issue 228 6 February 20237 February 2023 Aboriginal Australia Winaga-li Gunimaa Gali: listen, hear, think, understand from our sacred Mother Earth and our Water Winaga-li Gunimaa Gali Collective To winaga-li, Gomeroi/Kamilaroi people must be able to access Gunimaa. They must be able to connect and re-connect. Over 160 years of colonisation has privileged intensive agriculture, grazing and heavily extractive water management regimes, enabled by imposed property regimes and governance systems. Gunimaa and Gali still experience the violent repercussions of these processes, including current climate changes which are exacerbating impacts, as droughts become longer, floods and heat extremes become more intense, and climatic zones shift, impacting on species’ viability and biodiversity.