White Lady In A Boat

Katherine Coolibah

[ Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory ask in bottleshops for "white lady in a boat" - four litre cardboard casks of Coolibah brand Moselle - which they drink out of enamel metal mugs in any shadows made between two cultures. ]

White Lady In A Boat


Katherine coolibah, O Coolibah Katherine!
White lady of the white stream white money flows.
Coolibah we love you. But do you love us in return?
For every boat we get on is soon sinking down below?

You painted that picture like our lily ponds on a stream
On unsplit sides of ‘Chateau Cardboard’ casks of wine
As us blackfellas gather on payday in the deep shadows
of the leaves, drinkin’ under mango tree in white gardens
for a white lady in the boat who comes sailing cool and green

Katherine coolibah, O Coolibah Katherine!
White lady of the white stream the money flows.
Coolibah we love you. Do you love us in return?
Ya’ river is a hot an' thirsty highway in our mind

Moselle’s a white river under parasols to stop the sun above,
Washing dust to drown fairytales by the litres on the tongue.
Sittin’ daylight out, up pub steps as if sipping shade: a traffic
of passing, waiting for the liquor to shut every store of hope
for a white boat that comes for us when we are blind.

Katherine coolibah. O Coolibah Katherine
We just follow the White Lady of the stream;
We love you White Lady in a boat. Do you love us in return?
For each boat we board keeps sinkin’ in drowning dreams.


Wayne David Knoll © Late October 1995 Katherine N.T.