The Dying Refugee Poem by Francis Duggan

He remembers when the Government soldiers to his village came
Shot to death his wife and children and put their hut to flame
Shot to death other villagers and burned down their houses as well
Since that night life for him has been an earthly hell.

Three years in a refugee camp waiting for a passport and visa for another Land
And his joy at receiving such not hard to understand
Australia was waiting a new life to begin
After heartbreak and sorrow for him in life a win.

In his twenty ninth year and just a year in
Australia and time running out
On one who had lived through tragedy, war and famine and drought
With stomach cancer the doctor has given a month for to live
To this poor luckless man without sins to forgive.

In the pre famine and pre war days with his young children and wife
He looked forward to a happy and a wonderful life
But for everyone not everything in life goes to plan
And things did go all wrong for the poor displaced man.

In his dream he hears the lion roar in the faint moonlight
And the hyena scream in the African night
And in the cool of the morning he see his children play
In the sand by his hut before the heat of day.

Once a happy family man who had many a friend
Here is not where he would wish his life for to end
Far south of where the hunting eagles do fly
Above the brown savanna in the African sky.