A Father’s Agony

A telegram, my trembling hand.
My agony had just begun.
A loss I cannot understand,
Of Tommy Atkins, my dear son.

The Burma-Thailand Railway curse
that took your life without a damn.
A tragedy and so perverse,
One more Aussie slain in Siam.

Your comrade’s letter to explain,
Then calls to tell of your last day.
Your medals will not purge our pain.
At Twenty two you marched away.

Your letters ached for mates at home.
No talk of cruel prison camps.
Just yearning Goolwa ways to roam,
And Murray River sailing scamps

A welcome home new sailing boat
I built with care for you, my mate.
Within my heart I try to cope.
On happy times I meditate.

Your youth your life, so short but blest, 
Now lost forever with your dreams,
So, we be safe and unoppressed,
And free to live our lives, our dreams.

Spirit of Wattle

A land of many nations, with a multitude of voices
Where all are equal, free to follow dreams and lifestyle choices
Arrivals always welcome, with solutions clear and vital
And all are free to speak their mind, not fearing harsh reprisal   

A country often breached by fire, long droughts, and flooding water
Not doubting its resilience, locals start again much stronger
Our forebears too battled challenges, while trusting life’s equation
All shape the mateship creed and spirit that proclaims our nation       

Our wattle, always sturdy through climatic devastations
And always set for growth, come soaking rain or inundations
And quick in Spring, to flourish its endearing floral splendour 
With bursting buds of green and gold, for us to greet and tender         

Acacia’s hardy species, found in sandy stony outback’s
With green beside our waterways, and shade on sunny backtracks
While lightly scented blossoms, emanate a gentle aura
The sprays of green create a graceful charm to golden flora

Our wattle, found in many foods and early cures for ailments
And worn with pride by sporting teams, with dreams of grand attainments
And rousing troops to stand and fight, and bravely guard our freedom
For victories in Green and Gold, we thank’em with good reason

Our wattle, sold in times before, by Wattle Day foundations
For scholarships to gifted locals, seeking higher stations
To help and heal our diggers, missing limbs and minds in trauma
And care for people battling mental illness, striving order           

Now, golden wattle on our Coat of Arms, post Federation
To light and guide this free, diverse and in

The Life Blood of Our Dry Land

Our Aussie mateship spirit lights
and guides this nation and its brand
but silenced sharing water rights,
the vital life-blood of our land.

The Baaka lore of water flows:
a maze of slowly pumping veins
that flow from hands to limbs to toes,
then trunk to clean and so sustain.

As did the Murray-Darling flows
from steamy sheeting rain events
that joined the mountain flows, to slow
for Darling Lachlan River blents.

To flood the scrub and Hay’s low lands
to cross the sands at back of Bourke
to fill Minandichee’s wet lands
to meet the Murray River cirque.

To slow and spill at Barmah Choke
on forest land to irrigate,
then pouring into bottom soaks
at Coorong, then out Murray’s gate.

These ancient water flows – so grand!
The life-blood that sustained our land.

Now, carnage makes a nation cry,
as dying fish in lakes decay
and wetlands drained and doomed to die
and silted sands, close Murray’s way.

Our Members balk with bluffs and bleats,
about the upstream sneaky schemes
and down-stream whinging, wasteful cheats,
for poaching nature’s needed streams.

This Murray-Darling Plan with woes
along with water licence graft,
now chokes our ‘hands-off’ water flows
with porous rights and rules that shaft.

This complex maze of water laws,
an urban myth! Now near collapse!
so cursed with fatal frauds and flaws,
now only waning waters lapse.

New Water Member Pitt, with hope,
did brashly strive to make a stand
with balanced plan for States to cope
But post-truth world, a grim dead-hand!

Today a crisis – flows now jammed!
The life-blood sucked from our dry land.