As Innocent As Two Virgins



   [ 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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