Country

I lay silent I feel cold, but warm in my heart. I watch the auntie's collect Bush Tucker and mud crabs on the soft muddy Riverbank, children climbed on my branches happily laughing, laying and swaying they all had brown skin just like my brown bark I felt a sense of happiness around the children. At night they would go home but they always come back in the late afternoon to get Bush Tucker with Nanna when they go home they pass through piles of leaves that lay there sleeping in the soil they see kangaroos finding shade in the warm sun of the bush at their camp they would see dingoes hunting for food chasing baby Joeys. They would cook the mud crabs a fire crackling they would go to bed but not before the auntie's told them stories told them about the stars, and the constellations, told them Dreamtime stories I would go to sleep everything still the only thing rustling was the old possum been there for ages lived there for ages. For many centuries I continued to accommodate all the children of the bush I saw many things seen many animals been through fires been through sandstorms, dust storms raging against my bark but I continued until the end when I passed the children were sad but continued to grow more trees and when the children grow old when grandchildren and children want to play on the tree.