"We owe it to the forest"

Didirri reflects on his POEM FOREST poem 'Budj Bim (Mount Eccles)'

Hiking in Tasmania recently, I was struck by a memory of my childhood visiting Mount Eccles (which was the name I used as a child), now known as Budj Bim. I remember using that exact word, 'visiting'. And though I like the idea that we are all visiting the world - as Tom Waits put it, ‘I’m just a passing through’ - I realise now that it is strange to view nature as a place to visit. The more I learn about evolution, the more I understand that we have been shaped by the planet so much. We owe it to the forest to really think about it as part of our lives, not a vacation destination. It was a real honour to be selected to write this poem for World Poetry Day and POEM FOREST. I have a lot of experience writing lyrics for music, but it is such a wonderful thing to write with the intention of reading, either out loud or internally. So thank you.