The Hungry Hill

Across the place of stones and thistles known as the hungry hill The harsh call of the kookaburra echoes loud and shrill And down in the wooded gully the calls of the weerloo In this the home of wallaby and the wild grey kangaroo, An open and rugged landscape with scattered stands of trees Where thistledown carry the seeds of thistles in the freshening evening breeze To germinate amongst the bracken on the hillside brown and dry With every passing Season the thistles multiply, Across the old brown hillside many centuries ago The red hot burning lava in a river of flame did flow And in the downland paddocks volcanic rocks and stones abound And evidence of the volcanic age to be seen for miles around The stony hill where only thistles and coarse grass and bracken grow And across the rugged landscape echoes the harsh caw of the crow.