[ It's The 1960s ]
What can the man say? He's in his mid-20s and he's green and naïve and is still suffering from the influence of a Secondary Education primarily designed to create plumbers and toolmakers and with an English curriculum that thinks rhyming and metre is everything when it comes to poetry. If that isn't enough, he’s led a sheltered life and his primary influence is an 1890s “Poet of the Bush” because he doesn't know any better. But he has to start somewhere. Not that he's writing much anyway, too busy grafting too busy grinding too busy spinning his wheels. And as it turns out only these three will survive the dreaded shredder of time.
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WALKING
ROUND THE WHEAT
Bloody-minded
days when the numbers refuse to work
reporting
deadlines impossible to meet
a
moment's refuge is the world of a small boy's time
of
walking round the wheat
Uncle
John was a west coast cocky
big
hands, big boots, big-hearted too most of the time
I
lived with him and Auntie Flo and their girls
for
a couple of farmer's years around '48 or '49
He
was something of a solitary man in a family of women
past
the time of having sons but with a heritage to keep
and
on some deep-stirring late spring days he'd simply say
I
think I'll walk around the wheat
I
guess my disappointed look that first time
was
enough for Uncle John
to
come to the obvious conclusion
that
this scraggy kid'd like to tag along
So
a wink to Auntie and a nod to me
and
his old dog got quietly to his feet
without
a word he knew it was time
to
walk around the wheat
While
we walked sometimes he'd talk of grown man things
like
the old Clydesdale times or when harvest would start
or
of grandad's bitter struggle with that virgin place
and
the fires of '39 that broke the old man's heart
Or
sometimes he'd say nothing much, just watch the sky
test
the sullen air for smoke and softly curse the heat
then
he'd crumble a head and taste the grain
taking
in the message and the promise of the wheat
But
one dreamtime dusk he just pointed me
away
off where the ranges faded to a colourwash of blue
retracing
some memory of his own in the shape of the land
"Like me - part of you will always be out here too"
So
if you catch me at this desk some days
with
that middle distance stare, awake asleep
the
boy inside is with the dog and Uncle John
and
we're walking round the wheat
T.R.E.
(1964)
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TWO
STONE GREENWAY
And
then there was the story
my
grandad handed on
and
like all good farmer's yarns
most of it
was probably true
about
the opening up of the mallee heart
when
the railway went through.
The
year was about nineteen ten
the
old boy was axe-swinging young
then,
so was most of Australia
still
muscle-bound and brash
living
out endless scrubby pioneer days
run
by gritty city bureaucrats.
He
reckoned some soft-handed basement clerk
accidently
found a map of that whole new world
and
ruled in a line three hundred miles long
between
lunch and going home time
thought
about it a while
then
titled it "Railway Line".
Hell,
he became pretty enthusiastic
felt
creative - you know, a bit like God
so
next day he stepped out ten mile strides
and
carefully put a neat little Whistlestop Dot
every
place his dividers pricked the plan
thirty
of them, bottom to top.
Then
grandad said he must've got worried
the
big prosperous wheat towns wouldn't grow
in
a decent clerical sequence
so
as best as the old fella could figure
he
took his pen and very cleverly
made
every Fourth Dot significantly bigger.
Now
he clearly wasn't one for planning ahead
and
his maths was a bit wobbly
so
his idea didn't quite work out
and
even though he checked it again and again
found
he had two Small Dots left over
up
the top end.
Okay,
his arithmetic wasn't all that brilliant
but
he was a wake-up to how the politics worked
what
his brain-child needed was Superior involvement
so
he wrote to his Department Head
with
a copy of the map attached
and
his memorandum read --
"Your
plan for the Railway Line is progressing well
though
we have a town placement problem -
we
could put them at either three or five Dots apart
but
in my humble opinion, Sir, it would be best
to
have three-dot spaces at each end
and
leave the four-dotters for the rest."
As
it was against Departmental Policy
to
agree with what a lesser mortal proposed
the
Head said "All the Town Dots - yes, four dots apart
BUT
- ," and he pondered for at least
a minute
"Ahm
- make the railway twenty miles longer - "
which
they did - by putting a few bends in it.
Next
our Clerk found a book of aboriginal words
always
risky in the hands of any white man
not
in on the joke back then
selected
thirty, all very native-y, took the lot
and
he blissfully scattered them, so grandad said
indiscriminately, one for every Dot.
Well,
two parts of the track read (north to south) -
*
Great
White
Flying
Kangaroo
Bum
*
and -
*
Dangerous
Mountain
Rooting
Two
Stones
*
(of
course the childs-ears version from him
was
`doing something' with two stones
so
I got a cousin to fill me in).
So,
the line and the names all went ahead
but
the best part was they changed one Big Dot
to
the Hon. Minister of Lands
who
very graciously signed the writs -
(Dangerous GREENWAY Rooting Two Stones)
- geez, it had all
the locals in fits.
The
Member never did understand
where
his nickname `Dangerous' came from
and
in some old farm kitchens to this day
any
over-inflated public servant
is
still a bloody Two Stone Greenway.
Kids
need grandads to explain these things
before they're gone...
T.R.E.
(1967)
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WATCHING
FROM THE CLIFFS
overbearing
sky
cold
grey angry sea
joined
together in the distance
where
the horizon used to be
cat-o-nine-tails
squalls
endless
rollers running white
dumping
heavy on empty beaches
huddled
gulls and uncertain flight
ghosts
of old ships
lashing
canvas against the deep
phantom
sailors in crusted rigging
forever
running from neptune's sleep
relentless
masters
cape
horn lines around the eyes
cursing
hard their faithless lovers
and
her jealous gods in tempest skies
in
the watch of every storm
eternal
tallships and the sea
again
join somewhere in the distance
where
the horizon used to be
T.R.E.
(1969)
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