50 years on

Fifty years on

Looking down on the Plaza
at the opening on March 18th 2016
of this new Plaza at Flinders University.

A young man sits beside me.
Both of us look down on this place
once rectangular with a reflecting pool.
now a long way from that hard sharp edge
with that hard walkway and right angles everywhere.

We are glad to see four plane trees.
Planted fifty years ago they are still here
a backdrop to this so inviting change from
that solid grey concrete base to tiers with lawn
green lawn offering places for students to sit, rest, talk.

And even play. Two young women dance to music.
Others accept the challenge to shift wooden bricks
without toppling the tower. There is laughter as they fail.
A chess set is brought out. Pieces invite passersby to make a move.
Others rest their bums on grass and their backs against flowing lines

flowing lines of concrete. Lines that flow not stopped and angular,
lines telling stories and such stories, stories of Aboriginal cosmology.
Carved into concrete the story of the home river in the Milky Way and
stars as their fires. Such a change from Greek cosmology. Now students
place their backs against these stories of the sky and the rainbow serpent.

And in comfort what’s more! Large grey humps are bean bags
here for students to borrow, to sit on and lean against as perhaps
they write with pen and paper, stare at the small screen on their lap top
eat lunch, chat, enjoy the sun, warm on this new day. Rain has stayed away.
I’m lost in admiration. How far we’ve come and do they know just how far it is?

In 1966 we still had that 1901 restriction, there in Section 127
“’In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth
or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives
shall not be counted.’ One year on, a very slow change at last began.
Australia’s First Peoples would be accepted by 97% of white Australia.

So fifty years on I wonder if we know how far we have come
and how far yet to go. Up here on the hill, up here above the fray
this university now states for all to see and read – This is Kaurna Land.
Both of us look down through the glass wall that lets us see this change.
Even so, half a century to reach this point, this move towards recognition.

By Erica Jolly