The Big Dry Country Out There Poem by Francis Duggan

You will not see vegetable, fruit or grain crops in the big dry country out there
On either side of the road through the outback that could lead you to anywhere
A country of very few people and of very few trees
Where the coolest day in Spring and Summer is well over thirty degrees
A brown scrubby country of few sheep and cattle where the feral camel reside
An unfenced and untameable land of wildness for at least a thousand square kilometres flat and wide
A tough and unforgiving environment for one in poor health not the place
Those who survive in the Australian outback the hardships of life do embrace
In the arid scrublands far inland from the coastal cities in the home of the red kangaroo
The air full of the buzzing of bush flies and the screaming of leadbeater cockatoo
Where the nearest bush town to any place is more than one hundred kilometers away
Not the sort of land anyone go to for to spend their annual holiday
A flat unfenced and scrubby landscape for hundreds of kilometers around
People have lost their way in this country and were never again to be found.