Mt Eccles In April Poem by Francis Duggan

In the mostly blue and sunny sky a few woolly looking clouds of gray
In sunny Mt Eccles a beautiful April day
Around the flowering trees many brown butterflies
Seem to be dancing on the wooded cliffs above old Lake Surprise
Chirping in small flocks flying from tree to tree
The beautiful crimson rosellas so lovely to see
And a grunting male koala proclaims his territory
The strongest and fittest father the young that's how it seems to be
Where the Budj Bim tribes lived and hunted and had their corroborees
On warm Summer evenings in the shadows of the trees
To be among Australia's first people their eternal claim to fame
They lived in Mt Eccles for many centuries before the first Europeans came
To live in Australia from a far northern shore
And something that was beautiful was lost forever more.