Kongwak Poem by Francis Duggan

On a gum tree in a high paddock in Kongwak the boobook owl calls in the moonlight
This brown and small owl of South Gippsland is hunting for prey in the night
And wombats are out of their burrows they sleep in the bright hours of day
Some creatures what we call nocturnal suppose Nature made them that way.

To those old high paddocks of Kongwak the months and the years come and go
And they have been here millions of years before humans came
for far longer than one wish to know
They were long here long before the dinosaurs those old hills are as old as time
They have been sketched by the Gippsland artists and the poets by them inspired to rhyme.

Across those high paddocks of Kongwak the black tribes once hunted the roo
Centuries before Cook sailed from England and ventured down south with his crew
It has been said that he and his sailors were the first whites to land on the southern shore
And their arrival brought great changes though nothing lasts forever more.

It has been said that in Kongwak trees once were abundant but the pioneers cut the old gums away
And Kongwak 'tis said looks quite different to before the white race came to stay
And though those hills have under gone changes they will outlive woman and man
Old Kongwak will be there forever for unlike us it doesn't have a time span

The boobook owl calling in Kongwak as the moon shines in the starry sky
And a male brush tail possum on a gum tree is uttering his hoarse mating cry
But these nocturnal creatures will be resting before the day creatures awake
And before the grey shrike thrush in Kongwak pipes on a gum tree at daybreak.