Kulila

Image by Yuvraj Singh/Unsplash, Public Domain Dedication (CC0).

Published

March 09, 2020

sit down sorry camp
might be one week might
be long long time

tell every little story
when the people was alive
tell every little story more

don’t forget ’em story
night time tell ’em to the kids
keep every story live

don’t change ’em story
tell ’em straight out story
only one way story

all around ’em story
every place we been
every place killing place

sit down here real quiet way
you can hear ’em crying
all them massacre mobs

sit down here real quiet
you can feel ’em dying
all them massacre mobs

hearts can’t make it up
when you feel the story
you know it’s true

tell every little story
when the people was alive
tell every little story more

might be one week now
might be long long time
sit down sorry camp

“Kulila” from Inside My Mother by Ali Cobby Eckermann. Reprinted by permission of Giramondo Publishing and the poet.

This poem was originally read in the Poetry Unbound episode “A Poem for Keeping Memory Alive.”

Ali Cobby Eckermann is a Yankunytjatjara Aboriginal poet and the author of seven books, including Ruby Moonlight, the poetry collections Inside My Mother, and a memoir, Too Afraid to Cry. She is the recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prize in Poetry from Yale University.

Ali Cobby Eckermann