Rose Tinted Workingman


   [ Scattered Through The '80s  ]

    The 50 halfway mark (the fool thinks he'll live for a hundred years) is just over the horizon and coming fast so he's decided to embrace Work. In the Literary sense. Because it has a simple purity. In the real world he’s always embraced Work. He's a Workingman by nature. He sees Work as a proud thing. Always has. That’s why he scabs up images of himself at his labours, keeps them handy, in case. In case he senses doubting noises. And hey, they’re good to look at. Give out warm rose-tint feelings.

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    THE CEMETERY 

It was a cold damp paddock
a corner of some farmer's field
a well-meaning donation to his church
a hundred-odd years ago 

the story was you could only die in summer
in winter the graves filled with water
the coffins wouldn't sink
so they gave up after about eight
left it for a few generations
then sold it back to the land
complete with lonely headstones
all bowed in some sort of disgrace 

there was Mary and her baby John
beloved wife and son of Herbert
but Herbert had the good sense
to get buried somewhere else
Mary was only eighteen
John wasn't any age at all 

and Harold Xavier who was ninety three
and didn't seem to belong to anyone
alongside of three sisters
who the old man with the scythe
harvested with one cut 

one day a young man with a tractor
with as much respect as is possible
with a three point linkage
pulled out all those cold stone sentinels
lined them up along the fence
in silent regimented watch
while he ploughed that sad forgotten place
back into a farmer's field
now old Harold and Mary and those kids
help grow tomatoes 

    T.R.E. (1982)

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     THE DAIRY FARMER 

worked for a dairy farmer for a while
must've been a summer and its autumn
back when my crewcut head
was filling to bursting with drives of life
along with muscles and balls and dreamer's eyes 

he was a good man in his way
and so was his wife
worked like a pair of horses together
though I bet she was all woman
when the lights went out at nine 

a pair of refugees from russia's landgrabs
killed a few communists though
before giving the hated reds their estonian heartland
slept in trees and lived on turnips and fat
picking off convoys in a hit and run war
that was passionately personal
then the local RSL told him he couldn't join
because his bullets had been made in germany 

got married in a camp in holland
gave his bride an orange for a wedding present
and couldn't even use their real names
latched onto their old lady companion
somewhere in those postwar running years
always one step in front of the price on his head
turned out she was head chef
for the biggest hotel in all of the baltic 

the three of them got here via england
took up the sharefarmers lot by the lakes
amid the pelican peace and blackswan beauty
of that calm and clear and coorong place 

and he worked hard and played little
and me along with it
cows in at five thirty
so dark you found them by feel
sensing their udderswollen stirrings
somewhere out there on the clover flats 

muscle-ache long days with big feeds
the old cook worked her bygone magic
on the simplest of farm fare
scolded me soundly for sitting on the table
she'd brought only her oldcountry beliefs with her
but they were as strong and true
as the day her mother and her mother before her
had passed them on down for the keeping 

early nights crashing into a lonely sleep
cemetery-still but for the plover's cry
somewhere out there in the blackfella dark
dreams of a young girl too far away
too soon seven days a week five thirty again 

wish I'd stuck it out longer
but too much life to be got on with
to be burdened with sucking up to cows
twice a day forever
it's just that I didn't know then
that life is always
where you are 

    T.R.E. (1983)

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     PICKING UP WORK 

worked for a lucerne farmer for a bit
I was a restless nineteen and between real jobs
grabbing what I could
lasted about three bad months 

the lucerne farmer was an accomplished pain in the arse
full of a strange seething violence
simmering away behind a thin social facade
sullen resentment of everything around him
especially his four year old stepson
who he psychologically battered with constant resolutions
looking forward to that great day
the kid was old enough to belt shit out of
for things that totally escaped me
like just being there
representing some curse from his own childhood 

my offsider was middle-aged lonely Joe
he pinched the truck one night
fully loaded with tomorrows fresh lucerne
sneaked off to the local dance
to get lucky
which I think he did

Joe got the boot next day
but he didn’t seem to mind
told the boss he was just a bastard anyway
pulled himself up to his full five foot two
and said he was pissing off
back to Pt Augusta or somewhere
anywhere there aren't any red-faced pricks like you
I liked Joe
I wish I'd left with such style 

    T.R.E. (1987)

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    FARM HAND PLOUGHING 

it was an old crawler tractor
its yellow chipped and stained
a long working life clanking in its tracks
seat shiny from a thousand bums
the punch of its youth long gone 

the plough was probably too big for a D2
twenty four disc chamberlain
cut deep into the sandy loam
straining the diesel to its governor limit
on the lap after long curve lap
of that big and gentle rise and fall paddock 

the farm hand wasn't much more than a boy
eighteen at most
yet cocky with confidence
totally in harmony with the ageing machine
and the endless flowing scything earthturn
of the silent following plough 

he sat skewed in the beatup seat
one hand absently navigating
the other arm slouched over the back
eyes wandering slow and easy
sometimes checking the depth of the soil cut
then looking back to the birdbusy trail
gazing a while on the long straight runs
far out across the sandhilled coorong
dreaming of shipwrecked beaches
and writing their spiced and salty stories
endlessly in his youngman's head 

gradually the farmhand and his ancient craft
complete with his flutter of bridaltrain birds
ground steadily on and over the stubbly horizon
taking his honest noise with him 

    T.R.E. (1988)

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