Stop the damn Mary River Dam

[Bronwyn]

Stop the damn Mary River Dam


John Tomlinson
20 October 2006


Mary River - childhood home



I’ve seen your banks eroding

watched farmers plough your loam

now there’s a dark foreboding

because of the pending dam,

which will block your waters,

the gentle waters where I swam.

It’s going to dislodge farmers

force families from their land.

Let’s stop the political charmers.

Struggling farmers need a hand.

Mary River you once flowed free

from Boorumba to the sea.

You are a very scenic river;

to drought and flood you’re prone

I’ve surveyed your raging torrents

and observed you dry as a bone.

I’ve watched your Lungfish playing

and caught your Eastern Cod.

admired the Black Ducks flying

whilst on your banks I stood.

I’ve waded in your waters,

fished Mullet at the overflow

and in floods of ’55

nearly drowned in your undertow.

I’ve eaten your Silver Catfish

devoured your Eel Tailed Jew

and watched drought-breaking rains

make you flow anew.

Lungfish are totally protected

except from these dam engineers

safe for 150 million years

but not from political careers.

They claim they need your water

to flush down sewerage mains

to build more concrete jungles;

I wish they’d use their brains.

They’ll kill the mighty Lungfish,

devastate the Eastern Cod

they’ve the hide to call it progress

cause Mammon is their God.

It is environmental willfulness

as they reap so shall they sow

the destruction they will cause means

that these politicians have to go


From: Cultural Dissent, Green Left Weekly issue #688 25 October 2006.

[Nancy Evans]

it is an excellent poem


Nancy
_________________
nmevans