10 hours ago
(This post was last modified: 10 hours ago by RiverNotch.)
Absence and Antinomy
I cannot say which system is the worse.
In America, there was simply no sign that the pot
was ever owned by someone else: most places
had names in the tongues of their conquerors, most faces
were white or black or even my shape and color,
and there were no honors---no monuments nor exhibits
outside of museums---afforded to their first nations,
while in Australia a heritage more diverse
is championed by place names more byzantine, statues in public
more angular, murals more nonrealistic, and beggars
more universally dark, squat, and ragged.
Is it better to suffer such contradiction
or to be so thoroughly forgotten?
I cannot say which system is the worse.
In America, there was simply no sign that the pot
was ever owned by someone else: most places
had names in the tongues of their conquerors, most faces
were white or black or even my shape and color,
and there were no honors---no monuments nor exhibits
outside of museums---afforded to their first nations,
while in Australia a heritage more diverse
is championed by place names more byzantine, statues in public
more angular, murals more nonrealistic, and beggars
more universally dark, squat, and ragged.
Is it better to suffer such contradiction
or to be so thoroughly forgotten?