Saturday, April 07, 2012

Cricket song




Black field cricket sings

At night
Over the now gentle paddocks,

That earlier we stumbled and tramped over
Walking the eel path.

Around the campfire
I hear the plaintive refrain
Toorook, Toorook
A Gunditjmara songman sounds the name of
An endangered native potato

By day
The cricket shelters
Multiplying in every hollow and crack of earth,
Turned and churned for pasture

Standing guard over the sensuous curve of the waterways
Which echo the form of the Kooyang*,
Are the eloquent messengers of time past

Scar trees , silent witness, still watching
Kooyang
Make his ancient journey
All the way from the Coral Sea
to the heart of this Country.


* Eel in Gunditjmara