On My Country

When Indigenous Australians talk of My Country they are talking of their homeplace
And not of greater Australia but the countryside of their ancestral race
Indigenous people have a sense of belonging and their bond to place it is strong
Their ancestors did not believe in land ownership since they felt to the land they belong
The land taken from their ancestors that is known as Australia today
But that they remain as the first Australians from them cannot be taken away
Like all tribal people they have a strong bond to Country and to the ways of their tribe they are true
And they will always be the first Australians by birthright this remains their due
When an Indigenous Australian says welcome to My Country he or she means welcome to my home countryside
For they are a people true to place and in their cultural ways they take pride
They are the children of the Dreamtime the first of this southern Land
That they are devoted to place and to family should not be hard to understand
And when they say welcome to Country in truth they mean welcome to our homeplace
And they love their own parts of Australia Down Under's first and oldest Race.