ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

GOING, GOING ........... GONE .. Maureen Clifford © #TheScribblyBarkPoet

What do you do when your whole world is burning?
What do you do when feel so incensed
by the loss of all that is precious around you
when the world's gone mad and nothing makes sense?

All you can do is to put your hand up.
Help where you can, be it money or toil.
Offer a shoulder whenever one's needed
Keep your perspective though emotions roil.

This too will pass and we'll all count the cost then.
Loss of lives, homes, jobs, precious wildlife too.
Soon it will impact on every Australian.
Time then to regroup and all start anew.

But we must learn, take on board, and face the facts
that what we have done in the past hasn't worked.
We must be smarter, more astute, more caring
and put plans in place now that we before shirked.

What do we do when our country is burning?
What must we do to now help heal her pain?
We must be mindful, proactive and diligent
and try to ensure it won't happen again.

Let the best minds that we have get together,
take on board every suggestion they share.
Listen to advice from indigenous elders,
whose knowledge of country has always been there.

Don't dilly dally, cut straight to the chase now
the time for procrastination is long gone.
Fail now and we'll destroy Australia's future
for man's mismanagement will sing her swan song.