When you are yellow and brown
And don’t wear a gown
A helmeted turtle
Sometimes a frown
Is all you can muster
And the reason for that
When the water is dank
And not where it’s at
The Biripi people
From long ago
With their sensibilities
As well we know
Impactful sentiments
Caring they be
Unlike the city folk
Who seldom see
Wild souls a swimming
On the boulder beds
On submerged logs
We are sunning our heads
Short necked and beautiful
thats who we are
In The Manning River
Once we did star
But now times are hard
In the mud and the ooze
We need our friends
For singing the blues
Is not now an option
We need a fast flow
We need some fresh water
We need to go
Thankfully warriors came
For us they
Helped us and thankful we for them
Coming
We pray
Hard we can find
Some
Where’s better to be
Where exhilaration again can be key.