I cannot say sorry

for our attempts at cultural genocide

for 200 years of squatting on your land

for breaking treaties with you and your ancestors

for deliberately poisoning your children with arsenic laced flour.

for the hurt and devastating harm caused by introducing

alcohol into your communities.

for failing to acknowledge your existence.

for failing to acknowledge

the depth, strength, diversity

of your culture.

for stealing your children.

for the missionaries "saving" your souls.

for introducing a thousand diseases

into your lives.

for building carpets of concrete and asphalt

across your beautiful land.

for failing to understand the affinity

we need have with this fragile country.

for trying to exterminate your languages.

for the languages we did exterminate.

for decimating your population

by any means we deemed appropriate.

for the massacres.

for the murderers we let loose amongst you.

for having twenty more years of life in me

because my skin is white.

for all that has been lost on the rivers of time

for all that will never be recovered

from the dust

with the last breath

of your dying men.

for all the pain

I will never know

you have

lived through.

for my

governments

attempts

to consign

your lives

to pits

of history.

for..........................................