Nature Owns the Land

Red dirt chases the single-laned tarred roads, For kilometres past the horizon. Wrapped in endless yellow canola fields With lapping barbed wire fences. Authentic, wise eucalypt giants stand guard- They have lived And will always live in the years of the forgotten lands, They define terra-nullius. They lean over, offering shade from brazen suns. Oh, how the creeks know the Australian sun, Their beds have slept And will always dream of the time before the stolen lands. The land owns terra-nullius. The kookaburra calls to the morning, With all its glory, Sings the song of ancestors To city buildings That will never live to care about The roots of the Narraburra Hills, That wear olden-day graffiti rock art. Those hills whisper in their valleys Of the way they’ve lived And will always live overseeing The overtaking of terra-nullius.