Big Bill Neidjie: cannot touch

.

We walk on earth,
we look after,
like rainbow sitting on top,
under the ground.
We don't know.
You don't know.
What do you want to do?
If you touch,
you might get cyclone, heavy rain or flood.
Not just here,
you might kill someone in another place.
Might be kill him in another country.
You cannot touch him.


Big Bill Neidjie (1920-2002)
Gagadju Man
In Tim Flannery, The Weather Makers:
How Man is Changing the Climate
and What it Means for Life on Earth
(New York: Grove, 2006), 69