Poetry

This poem was written at the height of a serious drought throughout eastern Australia during 1992-93. Many thousands of sheep and cattle were being shot where they lay dying of starvation and thirst.

 

 

 

 

 

While There's Life - There's Hope

(c) D.Hillman 1993

Casting a glance 'cross the wide expanse

Its' harshness is felt with no doubt

A land dotted with carcasses - a sprinkling of trees

A generation of farmers - brought to their knees

If courage is the one thing that makes a man great

Then these people have it by the bucketload mate

The parched land opens - the rivers are dust

Some have gone crazy - some have gone bust

The banks and financiers move in for the kill

Why do they bother - for a lousy, bald hill?

The townspeople play not a lesser part here

They too rely on the land for a beer

While foreign aid pours by the shipload abroad

Animals are massacred by gun or by sword

Cornered in a paddock - a tottering lamb

A young girl rushes to feed it by hand

When finished it runs in a faltering lope

But the girl understands - while there's life, there's hope

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(c) D.Hillman 2010