CREATIVE RESPONSES

✧・゚: *✧・゚:*    *:・゚✧*:・゚✧

Stories Between Time was a Riverland wellbeing project set to bring a small group of First Nations Elders with non-Aboriginal young people to meet, hear stories and perspectives.

This project was brought together by FocusOne Health, headspace Berri and Closing the Gap Riverland.

Aunty Yvonne (Yvonne Koolmatrie) often reminisced about her love for the Murray River — it is our home, it connects us in more ways than one. Her words stuck with Kirste throughout these sessions.

Symposium was a youth-led project (as part of Part of Things, jointly with Berri Barmera Council and Barmera Central, supported by District Council of Loxton Waikerie and Renmark Paringa Council). A cohort of young people developed a weekend of workshops dedicated to skills building

As one of the founders of Symposium, Kirste experienced first-hand how people are ready to help, connect, learn and celebrate. That’s what inspired this piece.

connected by an invisible tether

THE BONE FISH – a commissioned response to Cathedral by Caleb Lewis

the bone fish

cradles memories

swallows sorrows

draws them to the depths of the ocean


you follow it

glinting scales lead you down

   down

      down


echos glow bright in its belly

they bleed blue from its gills

along clay ripples

wisping upward like silt


run a hand through it

the ocean dares

your fingers pass through like smoke

curling between the gaps

holding a hand you can’t quite reach

it trails up your arm

winds around your waist

warm

comfort

goodnight

good morning

around your shoulders

tickling ears with unfinished whispers

remnants of last kisses trace your throat


and the left over grief

chokes


the bone fish—

    —collects.

✧・゚: *✧・゚:*    *:・゚✧*:・゚✧

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