Remember

Do you remember ...
the first sound in the morning,
Dad shaking down the coals.
"Hup hey! Hup hey!"
Thud of the engine
chips flying,
The ABC news music
as we scrambled for the bus?


Don't you remember...
the monotonous "Ark, ark" of the crows,
on hot summer afternoons.
Wonderful riverlets of red
and going to the gate on the tractor
when Januarys used to be wet.
And the velvet nights, crystal clear,
silent after the engine stopped,
Just the creaking of the mill
as we drifted off to sleep.


Remember endless games in the "Two Trees"
and around the tank behind the kitchen
where a huge carpet snake lurked?
The same was my dread
if I had to go to the laundry
or turn off the engine.


Remember the swing and the big fig tree
How its roots jutted out
just where we jumped off?

I remember...
my Summer of dreadful thirst.
Hospital, needles, diet, fear.
Dad giving my morning injections.
and how I began to ride Kimber
young and newly broken
and falling......
How many alarms we gave them
our dear Mum and Dad!


And don't you remember...
away at school,
the lurch in your stomach
when you saw their beloved faces
and the sinking as you waved goodbye.
Homesick....
Driving home,
Tears along the Rannes road,
a lump in the throat.
Dad on the patio
peels at his feet.
Mum running from the kitchen
wood stove warm and inviting.


Try to remember...
Rannes 15D
History lessons as we trudged along fencing,
whinging as we picked sticks.
Mustering, branding, pitching in.
Hot and dusty but content
and how Dad peered out his office window
                                looking for lights in the lane
                                when the older ones were coming home..



                                                             Waves of nostalgia,

jumbled recollections

but of course you remember!

It was only yesterday....

August 2004
To my family on the occasion of Dad's 80th birthday.