Francis Duggan Fire Poems

A two hundred and fifty kilometres firefront is burning through Victoria East
Blackening the environment and dispossessing human, bird and beast
Clogging the sky with gray fog for hundreds of kilometres around
And only blackened desolation where it has been through to be found.
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In Morwell a pyromaniac from the police on the run
Of deliberate fire lighting for such kind is a way of having fun
The Hazelwood coal mine is burning releasing toxic smoke
A public health hazard to one mentally unwell person is just a big joke
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Since the majority of the Australian population their army admire
They are quickly forgiven when an explosive test gone wrong starts a major fire
Like the huge bush fire at Lithgow that thousands of acres of countryside and a few homes destroyed
A blaze in which many animals wild and domesticated would have died
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It is hot enough to fry an egg on a rock as some do like to say
Today is surely an out of the sun day
The cattle shelter in the shade of the trees
As the weather temperatures climb up to forty degrees
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The temperatures at a very warm forty degrees
And there is great warmth in the freshening breeze
That through the dry country up the wooded hill blow
On days like today the threat of bushfires grow
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The sun is blocked out by a heavy smoke haze
Twelve miles south of here a huge bushfire blaze
It's way through the brown paddocks and stands of trees
fanned on by a warm and a freshening breeze,
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Of singing their praises could one ever tire
Those brave men who took on the big mountain fire
Armed with sticks and shovels the blaze they did kill
That blackened the green face of old Clara hill.
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