Tuesday Poem: Green Gecko Dreaming (Redux)

I was here before you and after

the Big Heat

I will be here after you.

While you have lived,

I have struggled to live.

Some of you have been my guardians,

some have been my enemies,

but your ferocious machines will fall silent

and the insects will return.

Even my enemies will ride the sky again

as the smudges of your smoke

are wiped clear to blue.

Your footprints will wash away

and your domination become a folk tale,

ghost stories told to frighten our children.

We have kept the faith

and, through the ages,

our stories have kept our hopes alive.

In our Dreaming,

you vanish
and Gondwana is once more.

To celebrate the release of the Paperback Edition, I hope you'll forgive me if I run the title poem again.

The cover is a partial representation, turned 90 degrees, of a chalk drawing that my oldest son, Thomas, drew when he was eleven years old.