THE TERRIBLE SHADE OF THE OLD

GHOST GUM TREE

Raymond J Warren

February 2009



She stood on that hillside for two hundred years,

A Ghost Gum that saw life, it’s pleasures and fears.

Now blackened and burned, no leaf is in place,

All bush life has gone, burned away without trace.



She saw it not coming, there was nothing to do,

No warning was issued, till birds shrieked and flew.

And then Hades arrived to claim Lucifer’s fee,

In the terrible shade of the old Ghost Gum Tree.



Yes she had seen many years slow come and go,

Kangaroo and Koala that she’d come to know.

Goanna and Magpie and Piping Shrike too,

But now all were gone, there were not even few.



The nestlings were burned and lay in her breast,

Cockatoo and Galah and the one with pink crest.

Only a Possum who had lived deep inside,

Managed escape with a slightly burned hide.



Now she waits for the winter, for the rains that will come,

For her leaves that will spring forth to welcome the sun.

But sad she resigns, to how things will be,

In the terrible shade of the old Ghost Gum Tree.