Cherry Stories
© Rommi Smith, BBC Artist in Residence for the Commonwealth Games 2002

It is the Aboriginal belief that stories and names of people are written invisibly in the earth. It is the job of people to sing stories, pathways and history into being. For many Aboriginal communities, the Cherry tree traditionally represented, a way of life and survival.

Here, with palms in dirt, neat fingers
Grasping roots, that will bloom berries
Shoot gold, cause warm
Remembrance
Forget-me nots
For all we've yet to know

Ruby buds on the tree of home
Taste the flesh but
Spit out its stones
There are stories, lessons
Of belonging, beneath these hands

Listen. Hear this dance
That rides these trees -
We are here, because they were there
They were there, because we are here

A river's thirst
Captures stories
A link of the present and past

We'll know the meaning of this world yet
And know our names are written within it
Amongst the riches, here
Underneath our feet
From dirt, a trail of songs, an alphabet

Where each letter's stored
Like budding notes of imagination
Waiting to happen
Though singing a lone song
The voice belongs to more than one

The singular, the future tense
The multi-voice, the world afresh
We are all searching
Finding the beginning,
Middle and the end
For stories that we've only
Dreamt of, yet.