The Kurdaitcha Tree Poem by David Lewis Paget

The Kurdaitcha Tree



Out where the land lies in silence
And whispers it,
Where the sun burns on white skin
'Til it blisters it,
There the earth turns in the Dreamtime
Of Everland,
Bush turns to sand, and dry creek beds
In Neverland.

There lies a farm that has fought
And has weathered it,
Two hundred years, generations have
Gathered it,
Some say their harvest is naught
But a miracle,
Reaping where nothing grows, so
Says the Oracle.

Just enough rainfall to turn
Away famine,
Just enough stock feed to graze
Sheep and cows in,
There in the outback for five
Generations,
The family of Bevan has
Made supplications.

'Is there a God up in heaven?
Why isn't he?
Not in this cauldron of sunshine
And misery,
We could just do with some Mannah
From heaven,
Send down the rain, ' said young
Jacob John Bevan.

Jacob, the last of the line in
His battle,
Breaking his back, digging wells,
Driving cattle,
Steering his tractor along
The dry paddocks,
Beating the drought stricken ground
With his mattocks.

Spreading his seed and then
Watching it wasted,
Hoping for rain, though his God
Had misplaced it,
Crying to heaven to give
Some relief there,
Watching the earth shrink and crack
By his feet there.

Right in the heart of some barren
Dead parkland,
Stood an old tree, on its own,
In its heartland;
Blocking the tractor, obstructing
His ploughing,
A tree that stood tall, that the wind
Spoke to, soughing.

This was the tree that was known
As Kurdaitcha,
'Never cut down, ' said the native
Koradji,
'Some trees are spirits, and this
One much evil,
If it should fall, you will
Let out big devil.'

Four generations of Bevans
Had heeded,
Left the old tree, that parched land
Wasn't needed,
Now, with a break in the drought
Jacob swore,
'I'll need every inch of that land
To yield more.'

'Taking his axe, he went down there
And felled it,
Creaking and groaning, it toppled,
He quelled it,
Then he pulled out the old stump
With his tractor,
Dragged it away, but then
Never looked back there.

Deep in the night, in the still
And the darkness,
Something was beating, some creature,
But heartless,
Spread from the hole that the
Tree had kept hidden,
Took to the air from some
God awful midden.

Spread over trees and then
Covered the ground,
By morning they'd eaten each
Green thing around,
When Jake woke up early and
Stepped out of doors,
The locusts had covered the
Feed bins, and bores.

They covered the tractor, they
Caught in his hair,
They kept pouring out from
That paddock down there,
And when they had stripped and
Destroyed to the heart,
They headed due South, to
Consume every part.

The bodies of millions
Lay in the dirt,
As Jacob John Bevan beat
Hard at his shirt,
He went to the paddock to
Check the old tree,
The hole, it lay silent,
As silent could be.

But then a new rumble, of
Scampering squeals,
And now there were millions of
Mice at his heels,
'I've opened Pandora! ' Jake
Turned him to flee,
'The curse is forever from
This evil tree.'

Australia lies silent, and listens
For sounds,
That white men might make when
The sun, it goes down,
The rivers run dry and the drought's
Sea to sea,
Since one man cut down
The Kurdaitcha Tree.

7 July 2008

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David Lewis Paget

David Lewis Paget

Nottingham, England/live in Australia
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