The Tarkine

How thoughtlessly annihilate
The wilderness of souls
The aboriginal custodians
How history controls
Our very life the air we breathe
The land we walk upon
The Tarkiners for 40000 years
They had not gone
A realness and actuality
An enduring history
Tossed into a foreign mine
That perpetuity
Undeniably beautiful
A wilderness so wild
Essential nature given
Every single child
Whether animal or human that ever
Breathed the air
The Myrtles Hyon Pines
Tasmanian Oaks their flourishing green
Ancientness from the lichens and the mosses
Some unseen
Sphagnums green mosaics
Eucalypts all be
Sclerphyll and buttongrass
Wetlands constancy
Wondrous caves of magnesite
And dolomite there be
And a wilderness from godly hands
Laid down eternally

To extinguish such an area
And destroy its history
To disrespect the Culture
Of the Aboriginie
Many delightful middens
Occupy and be
Attested and documented
And really are a key
Meaningful miasma
And respectfully should be
Preserved we have no rights here
Our inanity
Glaring to the future
Deep rooted and ingrained
A wilderness of wonder
Its destruction leaves me pained

Of course we have seen mining
Its destruction was a sin
The rivers and the thunder
The pollution and the din
The ugly roar of mining
The consequence of how
Destruction of the primordial
Brought up to date to now

MMG Contractors there hardly
Is a worse
A dirty filthy more damaging
A consequential curse
Upon hectares of ancient woodland
Of carbon saving soul
The home of so much precious life
And such an intrusive role
It will play in its existence
In its identity
A congruence of miracles
That many fail to see

Acidic heavy metal tailings
Oh yes it will come
The broad beat of the clatter
The trucks that flail and numb
The ancient tracts where wisdom
Was torn down years before
With wildness now succumbing
To the evil of a war

The loggers and the miners
And the grey suits rub their hands
Its so easy to
Destroy wild life
To raze and flatten lands
Unmindful of the favours
Of our ancestors before
Thankless of their strivings
And all done in the raw
Of Nature with their bare hands
And tired bodies and we see
A marriage made in heaven
With their gods apparently

A wilderness of wonder
A fabric from before
Balanced with such riches
Honouring the law
Variety diverseness
Nuances of thought
And it just all fits together
Distinguished by its sport

Creativeness and freshness
A true sincerity
Incomparable and so unique
Uncopied flowing free
Transcending mounting towering
Matchless unsurpassed
Outstandingly progressive
All gifted from the past
A union of marvellous trees
Such symbiosis we
Fail to realise their network
Beneath our feet that be.

The untouched unaffected
Will be destroyed mercilessly
Great machines will sweep and tear
With much improbity
Artfulness and injustice
Sweeps in with such rage
Nepotism knavery
And its all gone off the page

I beg you from the bottom
Of my heart to think again
What you see before you
In a heartbeat it has lain
In its present circumstance
For many thousand years
It truly is your heritage
All those blood sweat and tears

The bodies of the ancients
The magic of the time
The uprightness and goodness
As the wondrous trees did climb
Up into the canopy breathing life anew
Parading all the glory
For the likes of You
And you now wish to sacrifice
To log to raze to see
All this marvellous abundance
Such vile skulduggery.