Darling

Sue Aldred

With acknowledgement and respect for the Barkindji nation and their elders, past and present.

Barkindji are weeping for their Baarka mother
The Darling is dying, our darling is dying
from putrid green ponds, her fish belly up.
They call it the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

The Darling is dying, your darling is dying
Once mighty river, shrinking and drying.
They call it the Murray-Darling Basin Plan -
It means putrid green ponds, fish belly up.

Once mighty river, now shrinking and drying.
Fifty-year-old Murray Cod lie dead
in putrid green ponds, white bellies up.
She mourns mass fish kills in Menindee

Fifty-year-old Murray Cod lie dead,
While cotton fields flourish upstream.
She mourns mass fish kills in Menindee.
For seventeen months she did not flow

Green cotton fields flourish upstream
Big irrigators pump out her lifeblood
For seventeen months she did not flow -
Those hungry crops and greedy growers.

Big irrigators pump out her lifeblood
Brewarrina fish traps - meeting place no more
Those hungry crops and greedy growers
‘The river is community, community is us’

Brewarrina fish traps - meeting place no more
‘Lose the river, we lose our identity’
‘The river is community, community is us’
Eight clans once gathered there

‘Lose the river, we lose our identity’
Eight languages were spoken
Eight clans once gathered there
On the flood plains, the teeming wetlands

Eight languages were spoken.
Reports are written now
On dry flood plains, empty wetlands.
There are forty-four recommendations.

Reports are written now,
There’s talk of a Royal Commission,
There are forty-four recommendations.
Barkindji still weeping for their Baarka mother.

Author's Note: I wrote this poem (in pantoum form) after camping on the banks of the Darling River last year. I was devastated by what I saw. I began to read damning articles and environmental reports of what we have done to this awesome river system. The Murray-Darling Basin Plan has hit the news again in the current 2019 election campaign, with the Federal government being called to account over a controversial deal. This deal led to $200 million of public funds used to buy back environmental water under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. The buybacks occurred without an open tender process.
Other recent news includes the first sightings since 1930 of a sunken paddle steamer. The steamer, built in 1886, once plied the Barwon-Darling system, carrying wool in the boom years. These sightings are hailed as a significant historical discovery, although there is no mention of the significance of the even more ancient Brewarrina fish traps.

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Main Location:

Darling River, New South Wales, Australia

The Darling River in New South Wales, Australia