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Poem first read on January 26th 2011 at the Sydney Opera House
Neil Gaiman
,
FourPlay String Quartet
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We killed them all when we came here
The people came and burned their land, the forests where they used to feed
We burned the trees that gave them shade and burned to bush, to scrub, to heath
We made it easier to hunt
We changed the land, and they were gone
Today, our beasts and dreams are small as species fall to time and dust
But back before the black folk came, before the white folk's fleet arrived
Before we built our cities here, before the casual genocide
This was the land where nightmares loped and hopped and ran and crawled and slid
And then we did the things we did
And thus we died the things we died
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We have not seen Diprotodon, a wombat bigger than a room
Or run from Dromornithidae, gigantic demon ducks of doom
On motor legs and ripping beaks
A flock of geese from hell's dark maw
We've lost carnivorous kangaroo, a bouncy furrier T. rex
And Thylacoleo Carnifex, the rat-king-devil-lion-thing
The drop bear fantasy made flesh
Quinkana, the land crocodile, five metres long and fast as fright
Wonambi, the enormous snake who waited by the water-holes
And took the ones who came to drink who were not watchful, clever, bright
Our Thylacines were tiger-wolves until we drove them off the map
Then Megalania, seven meters of venomous enormous lizard
And more, and more, the ones whose bones we've never seen
The megafauna haunt our dreams
This was their land before mankind, just fifty thousand years ago
Time is a beast that eats and eats
Gives nothing back but ash and bones
And one day someone else will come to excavate a heap of stones and wonder
"What were people like?"
Their teeth weren't sharp, their feet were slow
They walked Australia long ago before time took them into tales
We're transients
The land remains until its outlines wash away
While night falls down like drop bears don't
To swallow up Australia Day
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