Steeped in history
The afternoon slumps ---
habit calls for a cuppa.
The mind craves something staunch
to reboot as the coffee-fuelled resolve dissipates
a bold breakfast brew would do the trick.
As the jug boils, I consider
my comfortable options versus
those offered by history ---
the green tin or the red
the Irish and English blend respectively.
The choice would have been clear once.
Dusty leavings swept off a factory floor
became the green, after first pickings
were boxed in red, and
chopped leaf takings of the cheaper Assam
fortified the displaced natives of Erin
whilst the best Indian leaves that money could buy
steeped in the teatime parlours of an Empire
built by war, plunder, and brutality.
Why else would the troopers wear redcoats
but to hide the bloodletting of battle?
Gold letter status 'By Appointment to Her Majesty' on the tin
that emblematic red coat my great-great grandfather once wore.
At Lambing Flat the Crown’s men
read the Riot Act to stop the slaughter of Chinese miners.
But that was on a good day.
Usually the ‘traps’ defended ‘squatters’ rights
as they took over Wiradjuri lands.
- © Linda Adair 2020
Linda Adair is a poet and editor of Rochford Press/ Rochford Street Review who lives in Leura on the unceded lands of the Dharug and Gundungarra peoples. During Covid, Melbourne Poets Union published and zoom launched her debut book The Unintended Consequences of the Shattering. She has been published in 25 Miles from Here Pure Slush Vol 21, Messages from the Embers (Black Quill Press, 2020), To End All Wars (Puncher & Wattmann, 2018) and various journals. Her work will appear in the forthcoming Work Lifespan Vol 5 Pure Slush.
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