Poem: My belly may ache

By Phil Gregory

I long for it to be the sound of rolling thunder,

Or breakers crashing on the shore,

But it's the crunch and grind of woodchip milling,

And it makes me shudder to the core.
Arrests follow arrests -- the objections stayed,

Twelve hundred or more march but no news is made,

We will be strong and won't be afraid,

Clear-felled forests, red gum sap blood -- my memories don't fade.
It threatens our oneness -- our connection with whole,

Trains full of forests, one tree “semis” -- there's pain in my soul;

My belly may ache but I'm determined and true,

Millennium old forests, people, future -- my protest is due.
[Phil Gregory is currently conducting a hunger strike in Perth against logging of old-growth forest in south-west WA.]

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