Floodplain folly. Poem from Lake Cargelligo on the plight of our floodplains.
Channel: edvagg
Date: 2011-10-04

Built on the floodplain. Forgot about rain in the hinterland runs down the drain that is the river. There was a wall of water. Took the house and the daughter. She got on the roof. Now I look a goof. Shes ok, we live to fight another day. I'm more questioning now, how, how did this happen. Permanency and convenience is the fatal legacy of our forfathers. It wears down the neighbours. Annihilates them is a better description. Our neighbours being all living things that were there when we arrived in this country. Yari of Wiradjuri saw the stupidity of the strange white man on the floodplain of the Murrumbidgee, parking himself on the bank of the river for the permanency and convenience of trade. The punt was there. The village raised and then razed in the torrent that came from the mountains as it has done for eons energizing the floodplain. The nomad, who walked the land so easy that you could  not see where he had been and rescued some whites from annihilation was himself and his people and their way of life were annihilated  for permanency and convenience. The hunter gatherer could not exist on the denuded, dehydrated landscape. Shaved bare by sheep and saws and scouring.