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Based loosely on the aboriginal legends of the Glass House Mountains
Tibrogargan = Tib-ro-gar-gan
Beerwah = Beer-wah
Coonowrin = Coo-now-rin

The Glasshouse Mountains

Rising from the ancient plain,
Worn and weathered they remain:
Tibrogargan, born of fire,
Beerwah towering even higher.

And the children born of love
Of these mountains rise above,
Tea tree, gum and sweeping pine.
By their parents stand the nine.

Father, mother and their spawn,
Son, Coonowrin, first was born,
Victim of his father’s ire;
Felt the rough hand of his sire.

Maimed and banished to the west
When he failed his father’s test,
Poor Coonowrin takes the blame
As his siblings weep in shame.

Tibrogargan turned away;
There he stands unto this day.
From this family of hills
Flow their tears by creeks and rills

Through the land where much has changed;
Where the honey seekers ranged,
Now the sweet pineapple grows,
On the freeway traffic flows.

Under Tibrogargan’s gaze
Tourists on the beaches laze.
To the south his stony eyes
See the mighty buildings rise.

Beerwah sees the farmland spread;
Sees the toil for milk and bread.
Once unbroken were the trees;
Now a patchwork sight she sees.

Industry creeps near her feet;
Slowly spreading suburbs meet.
Where from fires of ancient folk
Rose so silently the smoke,

Now a steady stream of sound
Issues from the hallowed ground.
Memories of ages fade
As she sees the progress made.

But this mountain and her kin,
At each rocky heart within,
Hunger for the eons past,
Wonder, can these changes last?

Can these new voracious hordes
Resonate with Nature’s chords?
Can the hills and mountains trust
Those who’ve settled on their dust?

Can they with their doubts and fears
Stay for forty thousand years?
Only if they love the land
Can they like these mountains stand.

Tibrogargan, towering rock,
Scarred with fissure, cleft and pock,
Muses on man’s feeble schemes;
Doubts the wisdom of his dreams.

To his family of peaks
Quietly Tibrogargan speaks:
“Patiently we all must wait;
They are mighty – they are great,

But they will be gone one day,
We are mountains, here we stay.
Though the land we guard has bled,
We will stand when they are dead.”

Image by Bidgee via Wikipedia