| Red gum savannahs once so vast |
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Ochre pits, and stone-axe blaze |
| For millennia their shadows cast |
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Then Mitchell and the bullock drays |
| Across the tribal hunting grounds |
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Longboats on his Glenelg River |
| Amid a feast of primeval sounds |
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Mount William’s winds made riders quiver |
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| Trunks columnar, mottled grey |
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Two hundred years with us around |
| Legions anchored in sandy clay |
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Settlers needed the red gums’ ground |
| Canopies a dappled green |
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For sheep and crops and living space |
| Seasonally a flowery mien |
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We cleared them at a rollicking pace |
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| Branches shed from time to time |
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So much waste! |
| Leaving cavities – shelter prime |
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What shocking haste! |
| For mammals, birds and bats |
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Insensitive to their age and grace |
| And marauding goannas and rats |
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Bloody base! |
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| Those branches drying, strewn |
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Mortised for a post-and-rail |
| For decades perhaps, until consumed |
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Split and interlocked at Harrow gaol |
| By friendly fires of Koorie camps |
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And the shearing shed at Kout Narin |
| Allaying hunger, cold and damp |
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Gossamer fleece and shearers lean |
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| Harbouring insects by the swarm |
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Fence posts, light-rail sleepers |
| Myriad organisms were the norm |
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It’s our land now! Finders keepers! |
| Under the bark, munching greenery |
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Today the timber’s appreciated |
| Part of the ecological scenery! |
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Boutique floorboards, balustraded |
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| And relentless fungi and ants and more |
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A glorious russet-coloured timber |
| Attacked the red gum’s woody core |
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From Kimberley to Mirrimbah |
| Fifty to a hundred decades thus |
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Australia’s most widespread tree |
| Ashes to ashes and dust to dust… |
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Symbol of our superb country |
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| The big’uns dropped seed continually |
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Is it the most Antipodean tree? |
| A seedling survived, became a tree |
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Yet there is an irony… |
| One in a million, maybe less |
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camaldulensis, botanists call this plant |
| Died a veteran – as for the rest |
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Referring to a locale distant |
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| Grazed by ‘roos or burnt by fires |
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Camaldule’s a monastery in Italia… |
| Lightning or hunter lit the pyres |
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Not a farming district in Australia! |
| Of numberless seedlings that disappeared |
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Who cares? So what! |
| Unfulfilled, year by year |
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We must protect, extend the trees we’ve got! |
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| The survivors dominated the plains |
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I trust my grandkids, as is my bent |
| At home in drought or heavy rain |
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Can delight in red gums ancient |
| Responding as the climates changed |
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Can sense their venerability |
| Subtly extending or shrinking range |
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Their strength and complex poetry |
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| Gariwerd outwash, volcanic fumes |
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Scattered still across the landscape |
| Lakes and swamps and lunette dunes |
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West wind skews their Lego shape |
| Lava flows and sands windblown |
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Outer branchlets dying back |
| Megafauna – wombats overgrown! |
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A dead-end-road? Red Gum Track! |
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| Scores of millennia pass |
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As a boy with crosscut saw I stood |
| Ecosystems of gums and grass |
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Helping Dad cut winter’s wood |
| Another change – along came Man |
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I took each block and backed it off |
| And his ability to clan and plan |
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Cross-grained red gum isn’t soft! |
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| Stalk the emu, harvest yams |
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Now I work with Landcare squads |
| Corangamite, Tarrayoukyan |
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Is it the twilight of the gods? |
| Canoe scar a Koorie rune |
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Or can we massively regenerate |
| Campfire sagas under the moon |
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The finest tree of the Garden State? |
