by Garry Lyle
Squats the old man
age crippled by the town’s edge,
bush-longing town-hatred
defeat in his eyes,
defeat and a death-wish.
Immobile he squats,
alien, outcast, despised
by the parvenu lords of his land[1].
(Don’t speak to that dirty old abo
on your way to school, Johnny!)
White man, watch him lest you
in this land you claim as your own
ere many suns are gone
be outcast, alien, too.
Garry Lyle (1940)