Waratah Women
By Tara B
Wispily whisper to Waratah Women
Watch and wait for Waratah Women
Withhold your want like Waratah Women
Wickedly whack, they do, the Waratah Women.
As a yellow-tailed cockatoo will fly,
The Waratah Women will cry.
As the mountain-worth rivers flow,
The Waratah Women will grow.
But as they Waratah Women grow old.
And the nights are bare and cold.
The rivers dry as bones,
The air humid, hunting, hiding.
As cities roar and soar.
The Waratah Women will call and call.
“Children be wary, my children be safe.”
They whither and whisper, “This is a faulty, unnatural place.”
The Waratah Women, thin as their forests.
Their children unsure, Lost, confused.
Stone trees, hollow, cut through their homes.
Metal bugs, gleaming eyes, split them with their domes.
The sky is rotten like a fallen, forgotten peach.
Thicker with smog than sand of a beach.
Waratah Women absorb what they can,
Hide it away but it tastes foul, like it’s dead.
The Waratah Women are still alive,
Strong as mountains, wise as time.
“You may be strong but we are strength.”
“You may have your axes but we are not spent.”