'Honey - They're playing our song!'

Very soon I am to be a Featured Poet at Poneme poetry list, so I have been hunting around to show the widest possible range of my work - from minimalist poems to a traditional ballad. Australian folksinger extraordinaire Margaret Walters sung the ballad, and John Warner arranged the music. You can hear it here at

http://members.iinet.net.au/~aburke/balladofmanycrows.mp3


Ballad of Many Crows

As I sat out upon a hill
Upon a hill, upon a hill
I looked up at the crows that fill
The leafy trees of Wagga

I saw their eyes like marbles black
Like marbles black, like marbles black
And felt a chill run down my back
Beneath the trees of Wagga

A woman there had told a tale
She told a tale, she told a tale
How the town had felt five years' betrayal
Since crows returned to Wagga

”Our men have heard the crows' sad song
The crows' sad song, the crows' sad song
Until by their own hand they've gone
I curse the crows of Wagga”

Farmers are a steady lot, not given much to fancy
Born to heed the call to be as iron tough as Clancy

Now they hang themselves in their dark loss
In their dark loss, in their dark loss
When the crows' stark song becomes their cross
Among the trees of Wagga

Black-eyed and beaky with a mourning cry
A mourning cry, a mourning cry
Riverina crows trespass and fly
To cast their eye on Wagga.

Now's the time to break the spell
To break the spell, to break the spell
To greet the future and fare well
Among the trees of Wagga

I go inside to write my song
To write my song, to write my song
The crows know naught of right and wrong
In the leafy trees of Wagga

Details of the CD and how to buy it available at
http://www-personal.usyd.edu.au/~mwalters/