ARTHUR RECKONS CONCILIATION

               Humbug, Your Excellency!  I am certainly no firebrand!

               My boyhood chums were black but there’s too many a black

               round Ben Lomond.  Those river flats they’d tamed by fire.

               ‘Tis my property now.  I have the deed.  And your gift, post

               of special constable and pound-keeper in the settled

               districts.  Aye, I chase down the blacks but draw the line

               at popping ‘em.  I bring ‘em in, not to line

               my own pockets – I urge Your Excellency not to brand

     John Batman – but open up land-grants sans stir.  I settled

     those troubles with bush bandits like Brady, clamped black

     bracelets, did Justice Child.  I know my post.

     Yet these tribes are become devilish slippy, fire

     the bush, melt in smoke, our roving parties under fire.

     Us farmers are bent to drag these buggers into line.

     Shepherds fear to leave their stock, their gun, their outpost.

     So if my coves return fire, ‘tis not murder, like Gellibrand

     says.  Agree like clocks, me and that land-jobber - in a black

     dog!  When my trackers fell in with tribal signs, unsettled

     their camps, they broke oaths like sticks.  So we settled

     our debts.  Damnation take it!  Stockyards they’d set a-fire,

     assailed us with guns, waddies, knives.  ‘Twas a black

     outlook.  My men must hunt away but how advance the line

     with wounded blacks?  Native malingerers I shot.  Brand

     me murderer and I won’t muster-master.  Will quit my post.

     Listen, ‘twas right you commended a chain of military post,

     Your Excellency, for the surety of the settled

     districts.  But this design has not broke the blacks’ brand

     of surprise attacks.  They sneak muskets to fire

     upon red-coats, spear settlers’ men, drive off a line

     o’ sheep.  Excellency, this kick-up is war agin black

     brassiness.  Now you speak of Conciliation.  Black

     natives to surrender, nix resistance.  You post

     October 7.  I pledge my services.  Who swallows Gellibrand’s line?

     The slaughter of innocents, homeland of those first settled . . .

     Settled, be damned!  Shiftless vagabonds.  Stephen eats fire

     If we cannot pin these wretches, he says, destroy their brand!

     Squeeze your pincers, George.  Beat from cover the black,

     drive ‘em from hunting-grounds we whites’ve settled

     and pen ‘em up on the Peninsula behind the Black Line.

     Michael Small             October 17-30, 2007