Coat of Cliff Humphries

Your old coat. 27:06:2000

There, can you see her? I ask.
There on the horizon
ben-arng with light,
and her ochre stain.
Yet old man I am tired
and feeling cold in your coat.
“Then kaarrla kaalang,
light a fire” he says.
I continue whispering:
Some say it is darkest and coldest
just before dawn.
“Then better kick the coals
to warm ourselves and watch” he says.

I guess old man
you and I must wait.
This new dawn and colour
she will someday come,
but not yet,
and when old ngaarngk bleeds her ochre stain
all will seem momentous
But right now this nyoongar track is cold...
I am alone.

Often on this journey I could despair.
Carrying your coat,
this quest without promise,
it carries much risk.
And at journey’s end
what will I see?
Will your children take your coat from me?
And will it be enough
to warm their backs against the night’s air?
And what if they despair,
what then?
Will your coat be enough for them?

But typically
your answers are few...
And the journey is long...
And me nidja kaadidjiny noonook
waalanginy-ngayanginy:
with you singing the same one song.
And your spirits are many,
they rise and they fall.
And all seem to haunt me
just before dawn.
Just before dawn
when the sky is still black
and the stars are still flickering afar
I know you and your families there watch me
'cause I can see your shapes in the stars.

The Noongar Library of Cliff Humphries

Dark eyes 31:01:99

Dark eyes, Nyoongar eyes look me up and down, you worked with that old man - yarn...?
What they want ?
What am I supposed to say - nartj...?
Yeah, I wandered Kellerberrin’s Massingham Street, baarniny...
I just simply followed my feet, then I climbed into his mind - daandanginy...
Like I climbed into his brain - then wandered corridors that took me to old books and a burning flame - kaalanginy...
What did you see - they ask? djinaanginy...
I saw Volumes of his-story , sagas, Noongar literature,
read of secrets, songs, man-u-scripts and those of women - chapters and chapters of centuries...generations - mai ngaattamornong-koorliny...
I’d be there for weeks at a time, and, you see I had the keys to his mind.
I came and went as I pleased.
But, you know I couldn’t afford a ladder, damned step ladder.
That’s all it would have taken, ATSIC’s promised step ladder - but it never came, yay daandaang daabbatiny...
On the top shelf high above my head down his well lit corridors my stumbling feet were led - kair-koodiny
There many volumes were stacked, its antiquity intact, all of it untouched, unread and waiting - kokkinyininy...
Several shelves were out on loan, his memory fading, never to be returned - kairnyak..
This library of his mind, but with so little time.
I tried to tell ‘em, closing time is near - balartminy kaadjaanginy...
On his death bed, before his last dying breath, I looked into his eyes,
my old friend - werrniny...
This whole library, Nyoongar library,
sagas and all - songs and their law were dying.
Then I heard the Nyoongar crying, when their wailing had ceased, mopoke all sorts of birds were flying or was it the wind - yelbiny...
Then I caught the easterly wind come sighing from the land of his birth - benn bordok...
With the sun.

Ode to the Nyoongar language

Ode to the Nyoongar 07:09:98

Nyoongar Nyoorn - Plenty of time
for their dead, no time for their living.

Nah ! Haven’t the time to record old Jack, this
wadjalla system ties us up.
By the way did you hear the
news - old fella’s gone - Oh nyoorn.
His funerals in Pingelly - big mob’ll come
I bet you.

Yeah Nyoongar songs are special, this language -
our mother’s tongue, grandfather’s tongue so special.
Old Flo knew it all, the last of that lot to know
the lore - just hope someone remembered. Yeah this
wadjalla system keeps us busy, big mob
of funerals it drives you...

Jumped up the other day, thought
I heard the mopoke say - nyoorn. Strange how
the spirit seems to sing, especially with word of
death it brings. Yeah old fella’s language
is special, this we know, if only I had time to record
it though.