Red, White, Black and Blue

A brown boy asks me where I’m from

Why I have an Indian name

And do I know what it means?

Has anyone ever told me:

Rani means Queen?

My brown eyes and features meet his

Thick black hair, and deeper skin

We all want to recognise ourselves in another

To know the world’s order

To belong

To fit in

I tell him and others

I was born here, in Australia

But have family across the blue Tasman

In Aotearoa, New Zealand

And further afar, past generations; in England

Red, White and Blue

After my father died

A colourful community supported us;

Indigenous friends; Norma-Jean, and Uncle Sid

Became the family we didn’t have, as kids

Eucalypts and Olives

Yellow Sultana grapes

Deep brown eyes and skin

Inherited, glowing

Becoming, within

Black hair of my mother

Blue eyes of my father

Brown Milo and tea

Under grey, verandah tin

I am my mother’s 50s, black music

My father’s light blue uniform

Military pressed, and white tall socks

Navy and red school uniforms

That I wore, but wore me

How I wanted to fit in

Green tins of Milo

Yellow jars of black Vegemite

Brown paper wrapped sandwiches

Green fern fronds

Pounamu on waxed cord

Green and yellow Wattle

Brown Kangaroo

The bridge between Black and White

Across colourless oceans

To speak and translate

Between both worlds

To see eye to eye, with one of each

Neither lost or lacking;

We are here to teach

A brown boy asks me where I’m from

Why I have an Indian name

And do I know what it means?

My brown eyes and features meet his

Thick black hair, and deeper skin

We all want to recognise ourselves in another

To know the world’s order

To belong

To fit in