U3A Writing: Coming To Australia
Meryl Nickels reminds her fellow citizens who were born in Australia of the trauma involved in emigrating to another land.
How can you understand who have never known want,
or suffered oppression,
nor endured the wastage of war
on your island continent.
To leave one's homeland,
abandoning family and friends
is a traumatic upheaval
but, to be forced to flee
in order to survive, is beyond your experience.
We carry with us old hatreds,
old feuds, old scars,
buried deep in our collective psyche.
We cannot shrug them aside,
yet we embrace your land.
We embrace the freedom you enjoy
and the opportunities it gives
for us to begin again,
to build a future for our children,
and their children, yet unborn Meryl Nickels
