Yays! I finished it! It is a take-off of Dorothea Mackellar's 'My Country'. I have always wondered what our land will be like if we don't stop abusing it, and this is my best try so far at expressing my opinion on the subject (and yes, I was a little depressed when writing it).
Tomorrow's CountryThe love of empty deserts
Rain-forests green and cool
Was taught to us in childhood
In each Australian school
Our homeland though, is changing
And all it underlies
Children's children do not know
Their world is otherwise
They know a sunburnt country
A land of dusty plains
Of bare and rugged ridges
No forest now remains
They gaze at far horizons
A blue dome smeared with smoke
And weep with all the waters
Which our litter freely chokes
The stumps of trees are many
Bleeding, bare 'neath the sky
The smog enshrouded mountains
Enough to make you cry
Smell the stench of rotting ferns
Where outback creek did flow
Stark against the crimson soil
The fading flowers glow
Pitiless skies above them
The rain an acrid joke
The barren empty paddocks
Bleached bones earth's only cloak
Then finally the sunset
'cross bloodstained weary sky
Shadows swallow up the land
Release a thankful sigh
A land of gold, but fading
Her pain they must endure
Until the last torment ends
The moon dawns once more pure
They at last can start to heal
The wrongs we did our land
And to old Mother Nature
May lend a helping hand
This opal-hearted country
It is our job to save
For if we do not help her
The future will be grave
This earth holds many treasures
So 'tis our job you see
To do our best to save them
What ere that best may be
Word Weaver Award. Dec 2010