The old paddocks brown and bare looking they've outlived man's mortality
And cool blow the winds of September where the Murray crawls on towards the sea
I fancy I can hear the magpie piping on a lone blackwood tree
Mental pictures of wild rugged beauty embedded in my memory.
'Tis been said that old Murray is dying that on the river salinity is taking it's toll
That sandbars stop her flowing through to saltwater but all life is not gone from her soul
Many milleniums before the first humans before she was given her name
The Murray flowed on towards the ocean long before the dinosaurs came.
The black story tellers who lived by the Murray in their stories told of the Dreamtime
And they had their Corroborees by the river now honoured in lore and in rhyme
And still the old river is living though People like the Seasons come and go
And through the old land of the Dreamtime the Murray forever will flow.
It is said that the Murray is dying that salinity from her chokes life
But Nature will ensure her survival though salt in her waters now rife
And centuries from now when I am long gone and forgotten a magpie will pipe on a gum tree
In a paddock in that old brown country where the Murray crawls on towards the sea.
Francis Duggan
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/wherethe-murray-flows-on-towards-the-sea/
