Keith D Trestrail Poet Lyric

Notes About The Poem

Steve Irwin lived in Beerwah, Queensland, where Australia Zoo still is today. I live just a couple hours drive away. A joey is a baby marsupial such as kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, wombats, and possums etc. He died doing what he loved. He was hovering over a stingray and it mistook him for a predator (like a tiger shark) and the animal thrust its barb upwards violently. This is for Stevo!

Listen to poem:

The Crocodile Hunter

It was a call to action that we preserve
  the oceans and continents he crossed -
to champion, protect, cherish and conserve
  but alas now to that caution he is lost!

He was in large life a force of nature
  and in injured death a martyr to the cause.
Leaping madly on some croc or gator
  wrestling its mighty ancient tail and jaws.

If it swam or crawled or stung or bit
  he lived and breathed his animal spirit.
  Mate, if ever I see a ghost in khaki
I’ll muse of one man and yell “Crikey!”.

He loved the bush and desert and sea
  and forest creatures gentled or fierce,
but diving in the ocean wild and free
  a stingray’s barb did his heart pierce.

In Beerwah he learnt to climb and crouch
  when the kid Croc Hunter grew as a child,
and returned a sick joey to its pouch
  and learned to love the demon crocodile.

If it swam or crawled or stung or bit
  he lived and breathed his animal spirit.
  Mate, if ever I see a ghost in khaki
I’ll muse of one man and yell “Crikey!”.


             
          Written: October 2006

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Craig Cornish September 3, 2026 at 7:40 PM Bravo --Love the pace and the message--what has bothered me is fate---too easy--stingray just passing...yet so is life? Keith D Trestrail September 4, 2026 at 2:58 AM Yeah, not sure I’d be swimming over a stingray lest you spook it and its defensive instincts kick in which is what happened. You might get away with a hundred times but why tempt fate. Cheers Craig.