Empty Cradles

Nunga baby taken away
'Where's my mama' hear him say
'You takin' me to Goonyaland?'
Carried and fed by white man's hand
Growing up different
Never knowing
Aunts and uncles, cousins growing

Mama cries - Government pays
Children lost to city ways

But they'll return
when they grow old
and tell their children
of lies been told
So it won't happen again
you see
The cradles outback
that were left empty.

Mandy Hunter-Hebberman 1996