Tasmania Brought Me To Life.

I come from a nation of red desert sands,

Where the visceral Mother Earth chokes.

From beneath the foul place where the blowfly wing fans

The fresh sweat off the brows of the blokes.

But I come from a land more down-under than that.

From the rainforest island beyond...

Where devils are cute little things who grow fat

In the twilight-screened shade of fern-frond.

I’ll always be homesick for those rolling hills

Full of sheep, pademelons and hope.

For that mountainous cradle, and platypus bills

Peeking up from the creek down the slope.

My lungs mourn the loss of that fresh island air,

Of the blue gums and bottle brush plants...

But,

’Least part of my being will always be there,

In the bellies of leeches and ants.