Ginger has asked us to try something different on our Sunday
Blog posts, so for a change of pace, here’s a little rhyme from me. Bear in
mind that I have never considered myself a poet, so don’t chastise me if I get
the rhythm or pace etc. wrong at times. I just like words and telling stories.
This one happens to be about a profession well-known in my homeland, Australia.
Perhaps the days of the man riding out on his horse with just his dogs for
company might have been replaced by men on motor bikes or in their sturdy
four-wheel drives. But I like to think that in the remotest parts of this land
there are still, and always will be, men like my Stockman.
The Stockman.
The
bush and plains are the stockman’s home.
The
pine clad mountains and valleys to roam
His
hat rests low on his proud set head
and
covers his hair of the brightest red.
His
dog lopes close by his horses’ side,
and
the pair never tire through a long day’s ride.
Old
Irish has dreamed since he was a lad
of
riding all day across this wide land.
His
mother and father had both been rovers.
His
dad was a man well known by the drovers
They’d
died up along the Murrays’ side
and
were buried near that great river so wide.
Irish
knows well how to laugh and to cry;
to
share life’s sorrows ‘neath God’s clear blue sky
He
knows all there is about herding cows,
about
riding all day when the wind just howls.
Once
on a trek though the great desert land,
he
almost got lost as for gold he panned
Old
Irish has been where black parrots fly,
where
the mulga and scrub reach well past the thigh.
Past
rivers so dry that the cracks split the earth
and
no one can say what the red land is worth
He’s
been where the ‘roos jump high in the air,
where
wallabies roam over land green and fair.
He
thought once of settling, of taking a wife,
but
decided with forethought that wasn’t the life
No
drover would fit in a life in the city;
to
leave all this space would be more than a pity.
In
a place like Sydney or Melbourne or Darwin
where
the people all flock and there’s plenty of sin
No
woman in town would put up with his roving,
this
need to be moving, and constantly going
To
the back blocks and endless wide open plains,
far
away from the city and shops and the trains
There’s
no female around who’d put up with the hide
of
a man who yearns just to be free to ride.
The
man who knows joy in a good horse beneath you,
a
dog for a pal and restrictions so few
The
hard times and good times; the dust and the heat,
where
no man gives in to a thing like defeat.
The
bush folk have ways the townsfolk don’t know.
They’ll
greet you with pleasure, and then let you go
To
wander the wide open plains that you love,
where
at night all the stars fairly blaze up above.
On
a night when the air is crystal clear,
you’ll
sit ‘neath a sky where the stars seem so near
You
can reach out and touch them in the frosty sky
and
be closer to God than you’ll be when you die.
A
stockman knows all about drought dust and heat,
but
in his way of life won’t put up with defeat.
His
life’s filled with pleasures no town man would know.
Old
Irish is off where the wanderers go.
Please wander over to these blogs for more Snips and Stuff
from some of the talented authors at Books We Love:
http://mizging.blogspot.com (Ginger Simpson)
http://connievines.blogspot.com.au/ Connie Vines
http://yesterrdayrevisitedhere.blogspot.com/
Juliet Waldron
Please visit my BWL author page |
Buy my latest release here. |
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Who knew you had rhyming talents, too? I enjoyed your poem, and think you should enter it in a poetry contest. I felt as if I was born a rover as I read it. Loved it.
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm blushing, Ginger. Don't think my poems would win any awards, but thanks for the comment.
DeleteI loved your poem. It was as if I was riding alongside of old Irish. Thanks for the trip through the bush and the plains
ReplyDeleteSo pleased you liked it, Elena. I love my country and unfortunately many of the old timers like Old Irish are fast fading into legend.
Delete