A thousand, thousand camp fires every night, 
in ages gone, would twinkle to the dark 
from crest and valley in the rolling bush, 
from mulga scrub and mallee scrub, from dunes 
of Central sand, from gaps in straggling ranges, 
from gibber plains and plains of iron-wood, 
through leaves and in the open, from the mangroves 
by shore of Carpenteria, from rocks 
and beaches of the Bight.....for countless aeons, 
a thousand, thousand camp fires burned each night, 
and, by the fires, the Old Men told their tales 
which held their listeners spellbound.... Every night 
among the fires men chanted to the beat 
of stick and boomerangs and clap of hands, 
or drone-and-boom of didgeridoo, the songs 
rising and falling, trailing, quickening, 
while eyes gleamed bright, through smoke drift, bodies shone 
and dusked in fitful glow amid the shadows.......