There are 11 stanzas in the Thin Green Line poem by Adam Foster. For more information please contact Justine Glover – 0438 101 964
Artists have chosen or been allocated these stanzas:
Stanza 1 – Carol, Doreen
Stanza 2 – Alison D, Annie
Stanza 3 – Grusha, Magary
Stanza 4 – Kate, Alison M
Stanza 5 – Maltilda, Simone
Stanza 6 – Kate
Stanza 7 – Amy, Justine
Stanza 8 – Kelly
Stanza 9 – Mary, Adam
Stanza 10 – Gayle
Stanza 11 – David, David
The Thin Green Line
Stanza 1 – Carol Phayer
Stanza 1 – Doreen Dyer
At the Top-End of Australia, right on Darwin’s door
A patch of unique habitat clings to a sandy shore.
This coastal eco-fragment sits on Larrakia land,
Whose connection to this place is embedded in its sand.
Stanza 2 – Alison Dowell
Stanza 2 – Annie Grattidge
The place is Binybara, it’s a diamond in the rough.
A biodiverse jewel in a climate that is tough.
Binybara (or Lee Point, as it usually is known),
Has largely been ignored as Darwin’s urban sprawl has grown.
Stanza 3 – Magary
Stanza 3 – Grusha Leeman
But now it’s the key to Darwin’s last wildlife corridor,
Linking essential habitat for creatures to explore.
Mangroves guard its creeks amid paperbark and she-oak stands,
And rare old-growth eucalypts populate its dry woodlands.
Stanza 4 – Alison Mcshanag
Stanza 4 – Kate Meares
There’s sand-dunes and grass meadows, rainforest and cycad groves.
It’s really no surprise that tourists flock to it in droves.
A menagerie of creatures call Binybara home,
From those that live as residents to those that leave to roam.
Stanza 5 – Simone Martin
Stanza 5 – Matilda Weber
Thousands of shorebirds fly in from the northern hemisphere,
They feed and grow for six months then abruptly disappear.
Gouldian finches love the hollow branches of old trees,
Sharing space with dollarbirds, cockatoos and stingless bees.
Stanza 6 – Kate Meares
Turtles nest upon the shore, kites and buzzards rule the skies,
While lizards slink through long grass stalking sleeping dragonflies.
There’s wallabies and bandicoots, tree frogs and microbats,
And Rufous Owls that like to hunt black-footed native rats.
Stanza 7 – Amy Burns
Stanza 7 – Justine Glover
Given this host of creatures – some endangered in the wild,
It beggars belief that some would have this treasure trove defiled.
Lee Point has weathered cyclones and the wild storms of the Wet,
Yet it seems that greedy ignorance is now its gravest threat.
Stanza 8 – Kelly Rasmussen
The Commonwealth, in its wisdom, says Lee Point cannot stay,
It must be cleared for housing – there is just no other way.
So, it has set a plan in motion that is half-arsed to be sure,
That has scant regard for rigour and pays lip-service to the law.
Stanza 9 – Mary Noble
Stanza 9 – Adam Foster
Eco-experts have been ignored, its Custodians denied,
As bloody-minded bureaucrats take a power-tripping ride.
This extinction economics is like burning down your house,
It’s long past time that we demand our leaders have more nous.
Stanza 10 – Gayle Laidlaw
Politicians must stop touting green-washed rhetoric and lies,
And bleating worthless platitudes as nature slowly dies.
But this legacy of destruction seems not to resonate,
For when there’s money to be made, they shut down all debate.
Stanza 11 – David Percival
