Kongwak

On a gum tree in a high paddock in Kongwak the boobook owl calls in the moonlight This brown and small owl of South Gippsland is hunting for prey in the night And wombats are out of their burrows they sleep in the bright hours of day Some creatures what we call nocturnal suppose Nature made them that way. To those old high paddocks of Kongwak the months and the years come and go And they have been here millions of years before humans came for far longer than one wish to know They were long here long before the dinosaurs those old hills are as old as time They have been sketched by the Gippsland artists and the poets by them inspired to rhyme. Across those high paddocks of Kongwak the black tribes once hunted the roo Centuries before Cook sailed from England and ventured down south with his crew It has been said that he and his sailors were the first whites to land on the southern shore And their arrival brought great changes though nothing lasts forever more. It has been said that in Kongwak trees once were abundant but the pioneers cut the old gums away And Kongwak 'tis said looks quite different to before the white race came to stay And though those hills have under gone changes they will outlive woman and man Old Kongwak will be there forever for unlike us it doesn't have a time span The boobook owl calling in Kongwak as the moon shines in the starry sky And a male brush tail possum on a gum tree is uttering his hoarse mating cry But these nocturnal creatures will be resting before the day creatures awake And before the grey shrike thrush in Kongwak pipes on a gum tree at daybreak.