Yearning For Powlett Poem by Francis Duggan

Along the side walk of the busy suburb all sorts of people walking to and fro
And up and down the street the cars are passing here in a place where noise pollution grow,
My thoughts go to a place of peace and beauty as near a place to heaven as I know
The larks are carolling above the rank grass where Powlett to the sea is crawling slow.

The eastern rosella chirping in the sunshine and butcherbird pipes on a blackwood tree
And in the distance I can hear the surf waves and a freshening breeze is blowing from the sea,
I often think about that grand old country where Powlett creeps on towards the ocean shore
Where the Indigenuous Bunurong once fished and hunted their spirits will live there forever more.

I often think about that grand old country above the quiet beach when the tide is high
The black backed gulls and silver gulls are calling and the black oystercatchers piping as they fly,
Here in a place of concrete and of commerce the World of beauty seems so far away
Yet I fancy I can smell the washed in sea weed and on my face I feel the ocean spray

Along the sidewalk of the busy suburb all sorts of people hurrying to and fro
But I would rather be in south west Gippsland in that old country where the Powlett flow,
Where in the quiet of the coastal evening you hear the beauty of the magpie's song
In that old place still free of man's pollutants where live the spirits of the Bunurong.