Tags
Anti-dam fanatics, Australian bush poetry, Australian traditional poetry, Bush Poetry, dams, Green fanatics, irrigation, poem, poetry
The seed that’s planted in the endless rows,
With irrigation sprouts, emerges, grows.
But take away the sprays that make the rain,
And witness then, the graveyard of the grain,
As each seed shrinks and withers where it lies,
As in its blasted shell the life force dies —
A desolation sown thick with the dead,
Where could have been a field of golden bread.
To plant into the ground when parched and dry —
To throw the dice, the seed of wheat, of rye,
Upon the dust — to gamble with the gods;
Or else to irrigate the tumbled sods
And watch the seedlings germinate and thrive,
So those who would destroy the dams — survive.
— D.N. O’Brien
