Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Life on the Land



In answer to a query as to whether I wrote poetry,
I thought the best way to answer was to post a
sample and let you judge.


Life on the land.

You’d reckon he would have known better

Than to settle for “life on the land”

With all of the cautions and warnings,

But he just had to try his hand.


Where to settle’s the question

That starts uppermost in his mind

Australia’s a bloody big country

But most of the climate’s unkind.


Victoria’s rainfall is steady

No thought of droughts down there,

But with two or three real dry seasons

The threat of his ruin is near.


His sheep just fall by the wayside

They simply don’t get enough feeds

The bit of rain that he’s getting

Won’t promote any growth but the weeds.


In the evenings the dark clouds gather

As though the heavens will burst,

But each morning’s light shows

His land is still dying of thirst.


The hay that was stacked in the hayshed

Is nearly all used up now,

There are only the scraps that the mice left

To show for the sweat from his brow.


The frosts have settled in earnest,

The white landscape can look very nice

But it burns of any new grass shoots

Well at least it kills of the mice.


In between there have been times of plenty,

Plenty of locusts and plenty of mites,

To chew off the pasture he’s put in

And cause him more sleepless nights.


For all the setbacks and heartaches

He says, “The life’s not that bad”

But despite the brave front he puts on

He ain’t got the cash that he had.


Right now the farms looking pretty

There’s a tinge of green showing through,

But it’s short, and now it’s stopped growing

And there’s not a dammed thing he can do.


The garden looks neat and tidy,

The sheds all look straight and true,

The fences are in good condition,

There’s a crop in the ground, growing too.


Sounds like everything’s rosy,

It’s just there’s no rain, or cash flow

To meet the bills as they come in

That’s dealing the crippling blow.


Who’s helped him through all of his hardships?

Was it Dalgety’s? Or Elder’s? The Bank?

No, the girl that he married

Is the one he really must thank.


These are the trials of farming

To be weathered and beaten in time

Have enough patience to hang on

And everything works out just fine.


Written by Peter Holt

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