Brenda Saunders
Potent as spears, black-boys rise sentinel
after the fire has passed
New life sprouts along the blackened stem
A spray of green circles the base spins wild
as grass skirts on young men dancing
Initiation Ceremony
They learn the secret value of Gul-gad-ya
the power in each spike and root
A magic resin stronger than string
holds spear tip to shaft
cements a stone axe to the hilt
Brave Gadigal men hold the knowledge
earn their place as hunters
Make a draft from crushed flowers
their manhood stored in heady wine
maturing with age
Gul-gad-ya: native grass trees or black-boys
Gadigal: Sydney tribe (Eora language)
Brenda Saunders is a Wiradjuri writer from Sydney. She has written three collections of poetry and her work appears in anthologies and journals, including Australian Poetry Journal, Overland, Southerly and Westerly. In 2018, she won the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Prize (Queensland Poetry) and the Joanne Burns Award for Prose Poetry (Spineless Wonders). She is a mentor for Black Cockatoo, the Emerging Indigenous Poets site at Verity La.